We Remember

We remember:

10% of what we read

20% of what we hear

30% of what we see

50% of what we both see and hear

English Speaking Training:  The Fragile Nature of Intelligence

I’ve felt it. You have probably felt it, too. You feel especially smart and funny when talking to one person and then feel unintelligent and unable to speak fluently with another.

It’s not your imagination.  Experiments show that when people report feeling comfortable with a conversational partner, they are rated by those partners and observers as indeed  being more witty.

This is as example  of the powerful effect that social factors can have on thinking , acting, and performing skills.

Psychologists Joshua Aronson and Claude Steele  identified the phenomenon of “stereotype threat.”  Members of groups believed to be academically inferior – female students in math and science classes, or African-American and Latino students enrolled in college – score much lower on tests when reminded beforehand of their gender or race.

Steele and Aronson’s experiments in the 1990s and dozens of other studies concluded that  the performance of students suffered because they were worried about confirming negative stereotypes about their group.

Minorities aren’t the only ones vulnerable to stereotype threat. A group of people  confident about their mathematical skills – white male math and engineering majors who obtained high scores on the SAT math portion – did worse on a math test when told the experiment was intended to discover “why Asians appear to outperform other students on tests of math ability.”

The take home lesson: we should all foster techniques for reducing anxiety and building self-confidence.  We should focus on making our social environments full of warmth and trust, not competition and exclusion.  We should nurture the self confidence in others to be the best version of themselves… and they will be.

Next time: How overlearning  makes you not just a star but a brilliant star

Click here: www.cleartalkmastery.com/scheduler to sign up for a Free Sample Lesson with us! 

 Be sure to watch our English Speech Tips videos and Accent Reduction Tip videos  for more English pronunciation and accent reduction exercise.

The Power of Speaking

                     Ponder this gem:

If all my talents and powers were to be taken from me by some inscrutable Providence, and I had my choice of keeping but one, I would unhesitatingly ask to be allowed to keep the Power of Speaking, for through it, I would quickly recover all the rest.

                    -Daniel Webster

English Speaking Training: Understand that Strange Spelling

Did you ever wonder why some words in English have such strange spelling?   For accurate pronunciation of many words, you say the consonants loud and clear using the positioning for English, not for other languages.  And for most words, using the English spelling rules for vowels, you can know the accurate pronunciation.

However, you have certainly noticed that some words have letters that you do not pronounce or series of letters that have a different pronunciation.  There are lots of reasons for this strange spelling in these words, but borrowing from another language’s spelling is a major reason.

Throughout history, it has been popular to borrow language and culture from other admired countries.  In Renaissance times, it became popular to borrow Latin spellings for otherwise perfectly typical words.  For example, the word debt used to be spelled dette, but the “b” was added to match the Latin word debitum.

Another example is the word doubt.  Doubt was borrowed from the French douter but was given new spelling based on the Latin dubitare.

This manner of spelling words is called Etymological Spelling.  This system of spelling relies on traditional spelling rules, and not on pronunciation or changes in pronunciation.  Other words etymologically spelled are indict(Latin indictare),  receipt (Latin recepta)  subtle (Latin subtilis).

Add to that this phenomenon: when the spelling was changed, sometimes the pronunciation was changed.  For instance, throne used to be pronounced and spelled  trone…  until the Latin spelling was reintroduced with an “h” after the “t”, and the pronunciation changed.  The word “thyme”  was respelled with an “h” but kept its original pronunciation.

Bankrupt got its “p” from the Latin  rupta.  Baptism used to be bapteme from French, but an “s” was added to match the Latin baptismus.

The difficult thing about Etymological Spelling is that it makes pronunciation difficult.  However,  for written English, it has the advantage of similar spelling of the root word for many words and tickles our subconscious into tuning into  and intuitively understanding the  meanings of many related words.

Nice! Now you understand more about the “th” and why some letters like “b,” “p,” “t,”  and “s” have come into the spelling of particular English words.  The evolution of a language is so interesting!  And these little explanations  will also make such spellings more memorable to you.

For more, see www.aloveofwords.com/209/09/02/renaissance-spelling by Maggie

Next time we explore how fragile is our intelligence and performing of skills.

Click here: www.cleartalkmastery.com/scheduler to sign up for a Free Sample Lesson with us! 

 Be sure to watch our English Speech Tips videos and Accent Reduction Tip videos  for more English pronunciation and accent reduction exercise.

Anxious?

Most important strategy:

Preparation

My personal favorite:

Rehearse out loud

My newly found tip:

Arrive one hour early and meet and greet people at the door.