How to Practice English Pronunciation -- Interview with Tom Kelley

Hey guys. Welcome to the set of Rachel’s English in New York at the YouTube Space.

We’re here with the Rachel’s English teacher Tom. Tom’s been teaching with me since 2012

and has logged hundreds of hours teaching. So we’re going to sit down in an interview

with Tom today to learn about his lessons. Also, you’ll get some tips about things

to think about when you’re practicing on your own.

>> Tom, thank you so much for being here. >> It’s my pleasure.

>> My first question is, what is something that new students discover when they first

start taking lessons with you? >> To be honest, I think students tend

to discover that it’s going to be more complicated than they thought. Many students come into

lessons with a belief that they will work on the R sound and maybe a couple consonant

sounds, and then, all of a sudden, their English will have improved dramatically. And I think

it’s often much more complicated than that. It tends to be a lot of focus on rhythm. And

a lot of focus on relaxation. >> Yeah.

>> Um, one thing that I think about a lot with my students and talk about a lot with

my students is that, as an actor, when I went to school and took speech training—I’m

a native speaker of English, but I was in a speech class—and the first thing we did

was work on relaxation. Taking this instrument way back to neutral. So that we could start

from a place of, kind of, discovering some new sounds that I wasn’t capable of making

when I went in there. And that’s as a native speaker of English.

>> Speaking about the rhythm of English reminds me, when I was teaching, that students didn’t

realize how much I was going to focus on character. They were just thinking: sounds. But I was

more character-focused. And when they got into it, they realized, wow, this really matters.

>> Yeah. To be honest, I think the best lessons that I do are almost solely based on character,

and then sounds come up. >> Right.

>> And you deal with them in the moment. But those are so easy …

>> Yeah, right. >> …in comparison with dealing with that

character of English. The way that you move your tongue in your mouth. It’s going to

be very different than you’re used to. So, if you start correcting that, if you start

playing with that movement, you’re going to find that a lot of sounds take care of

themselves. But you’re going to need to do that by building the character.

>> Notice that Tom’s talking a lot about playing. And I think that’s one thing

that we don’t do enough. When we’re learning something new, we want to make sure we’re

right, which often brings in extra tension. But when we think of it as playing, then it

can sort of loosen us up. And actually, Tom and I recorded some audio for the book, in

which we’re just making random, crazy sounds, and encouraging people to imitate that. And

that’s the first thing in the book. >> Yeah.

>> And the point is, relax. Get out of yourself. This is going to be something different and

new. >> Another thing that can help a student who,

maybe, can’t take lessons in person or online, is to get really interested in how they’re

making sound visually. To use a mirror, to use a camera. Something that I’ll do with

my students is have them listen to a native speaker’s TED talk. Which as so interesting

and inspirational so often anyway, so it’s interesting to listen to. And they have all

their transcripts available. So you can practice a transcript looking into a camera and record

yourself. And then, watch the native speaker and watch yourself. And if you notice that

you tend to not drop your jaw at all, you see your teeth, they’re very close together,

then that’s a sign that you need to work on that relaxation of the jaw. Create a little

more space. So you can start getting, just really interested in watching other speakers.

And comparing it to your own. That’s, um, that’s if you’re on your own and you—and

there’s just no one around to help you out. It’s a good, a good way to do that.

>> That’s a great tip.

>> Tom, what’s something that you’ve learned from your students.

>> I would say that, something that I was kind of surprised to learn—I went in thinking,

oh, at some point I will feel like I have it all figured out. Like it’s just kind

of cut and dried and I will know everything to hand to my students, and they will simply

take it, and I will just have to say it one way. And I think, what I’m realizing, is

that we all have incredibly specific histories to the way that we speak. For me, I grew up

in Indiana. So, the center of the country. But, I had a father who was a newscaster.

So I grew up with, kind of, broadcaster English. So when I went to grad school, there was less

that I needed to adjust to find the standard American English. But, every student has a

very specific history that they’re coming from. The languages they spoke, and then,

the people that they learned English from. Where were they from? What kind of accent

were they speaking? And, so, as I’m teaching, each student is, kind of, teaching me a new

way to talk about concepts. >> Yeah.

>> Because, that’s one of my favorite things about teaching. It can be frustrating sometimes,

but it’s really a joy to find the best way to communicate a concept to each individual

student. Because it’s always just a little different. So I think I’ve really learned

how unique we are, in the way that we communicate. >> And Tom and I were talking last week about

how, sometimes, you’ll be working with, for example, a student from Russia, and you’ll

figure out the right way to, to teach something to him or her. And then—oh, you’ve learned

from the person the right way to teach it. >> Totally.

>> And then the next time you have a Russian student, then you’re all the better prepared

>> Yeah, yeah. Those are awesome moments. Those are huge light bulb moments for me as

a teacher, certainly.

>> If a student is preparing for something important, like a job interview, for example,

and they have a limited amount of time, just a couple weeks maybe. What would you do to

work with them? What would your priorities be?

>> Well, for all my lessons, we use a recording project to, kind of, get them into the lessons.

So they’ll send me a recording that they will record of themselves speaking. And so

for that week, we would use the text of whatever. If they had a presentation, we would use the

presentation text. If they had an interview, they could do a mock interview of themselves

speaking. So they get some practice on the vocabulary that they’re going to use. And

then, we would use the lesson time to really drill that vocabulary, any concepts, any words

that are a little hard to understand. We would really kind of get into why it’s hard to

understand, and help them drill those. And then they would have that lesson video throughout

the week to, kind of, focus on those interview-specific concepts. And they would practice with that

throughout the week. And then if they had a couple weeks, we could come back, see how

that’s going, and adjust. But, I love in lessons when we have something that specific,

because we can really focus in on vocabulary that they’re using on a daily basis. And

that can be great to help them integrate the practice into their everyday conversation.

>> Now, at the beginning of this interview, you said one of the first things that students

discover is, sort of, how much work it’s going to be.

>> Yeah. >> And how complicated it is. So when you

have a short period of time to work on one goal, how do you simplify the process, or,

what do you focus on? >> For that, if it’s just one goal, we really

just focus on succeeding on that, kind of, small world of text. So it becomes much more

specific about this word, as opposed to trying to extrapolate major concepts from that word,

we just focus in on, when you get to this word, remember to drop your jaw, remember

that tongue movement, and drill it a million times this week.

>> Right. >> So that you can really nail it in the interview

or in your presentation. >> So, for an interview, it would maybe be

vocabulary specific to that job interview, or whatever.

>> Absolutely >> Just getting comfortable with those core

words. >> Yes. Yeah. I mean, we just dive into the

material that they will be using in that, whatever environment they’re headed into,

so that they can feel as comfortable as possible. The, the thing is, you can practice as much

as you can, you, maybe you can practice five hours a day. But, when it comes down to it,

you’re probably going to be nervous in those situations. And so, when you get in the room,

you kind of have to let everything go and just be yourself, and hope that the

practice kind of comes with you. >> Yeah.

>> Um, but the best way that that practice is going to come with you is if you’ve drilled

and drilled and practiced. And so, we try in the lessons to really give a specific kind

of sense of what they need to work on in their alone time as they practice. To build up,

and have a successful experience. >> Great. Well Tom, thank you so much for

this advice. I appreciate it, and I hope everyone out there has appreciated it too.

>> Absolutely. My pleasure. >> And guys, Tom does have availability yet

in his schedule for a few more students. So if you’re preparing for an important event,

or you just want to work with somebody directly on your specific issues,

check out RachelsEnglish.com/lessons.

>> I’d love to work with you. >> That’s it guys, and thanks so much for

using Rachel’s English.