English Pronunciation CHALLENGE | 3 Exercises to Improve Your American English

Have you ever been saying something and you didn’t know what you were saying?

I just finished up a live class about five minutes ago.

And I was working with a student and I was asking him to say English sounds, English

word parts.

And he didn’t know what I was asking him to say.

And that was intimidating but actually, when you don’t know what you are saying, you

have nothing to rely on.

All you can do it repeat exactly what you hear just like babies do when they’re learning

a new language.

So in today’s video, we’re going to go over an exercise to help get you to that place

of a baby for listening and repeating and building you American voice.

In this class, I was working with a student in EE, IH and EH.

There’s also AY which can throw people off.

And I was having him repeat words or word parts or just sounds and he wasn’t always

sure what I was saying.

So he wasn’t sure what words to say.

And I was like, this is great.

If you don’t know what word I’m asking you to say, you can’t rely on information

you already know.

And that information might be a little incorrect.

So if all you can do is rely on what you’re hearing and repeat that, then that’s a great

place to be.

You’re wiping all your knowledge away and you’re starting fresh just with your ears.

Be

Sorry, which word are you trying to..

Well, that’s the thing.

I don’t want to tell you.

Okay.

Because I don’t want you to think in your head.

Oh I’m going to match this sound.

Just follow me.

Yeah.

Ih

Ih

Be

Be

Be

Be

So the thing I like about this is I actually love it when my students don’t know what

they are saying because you sort of loose that structure that you have and it’s a

little bit scary but like it feels silly but then the only thing you can do is try to repeat

exactly what I say like there’s no, oh I know this sound I’m going to do that.

Think about it, a kid knows nothing.

About how to produce sounds, what sounds are in English, all they know is what they hear

and they repeat it back exactly.

Adults, we have a little bit of a problem because we have learned so much.

We’ve learned about the sounds of a new language we are learning.

Maybe we’ve learned a little bit about the mouth position, this is all mind and knowledge

and it might get in the way of building the body knowledge that we want to form the habit

of saying sounds correctly in another language.

So now, we’re going to do some vowel training together.

I’m going to be saying vowels, diphthongs, and word parts with vowels and diphthongs

maybe even whole words.

You may not know what you’re hearing.

You may not be able to identify which sound it is.

No problem.

Just do it.

As I work with my students, I found more and more that what I call the “Play it, say

it method” is so important for not just hearing a vowel but for being able to repeat

it exactly.

Precisely.

And some people think repeating something five, six, ten times, that sounds kind of boring.

But it’s not boring because the results that you get is to basically sound native.

Students that I found who really stick with the play it, say it method end up sounding

perfect at the end.

So my challenge to you is don’t get intimidated if you don’t know what word or word part

you’re repeating and then don’t get intimidated by the number of times I want you to repeat

something.

I’m going to do each thing ten times.

You’re going to repeat exactly what you hear and you don’t stop and think, you don’t

try to correct, you just imitate exactly, hear it again, imitate exactly, hear it again,

what happens in this process is your mind makes little tweaks to your body and I don’t

have to tell you what to do.

It’s actually incredible.

Your own mind becomes your own body’s coach and you end up really getting close to if

not completely on the accurate sound.

So here it is.

This is going to be a long section of hearing and repeating vowels, diphthongs, word parts

and a few words.

You’re not going to have any on-screen texts telling what you’re saying.

In fact, the screen is going to be blank.

Because I don’t want you to think anything visual.

You can even close your eyes.

You’re just responding to what you hear.

Actually, you know what a great idea is?

If you have a mirror or another device where you can do a video watch yourself.

Watch yourself doing it.

Okay here we go.

Wait, actually I should tell you I am a the end going to tell you everything you worked

on, but don’t skip ahead to that.

That doesn’t matter, what we want is for you to not be sure of what you’re saying.

You have to rely only on what you’re hearing.

Okay now you’re done each thing ten times.

Now, I’m going to mix it up on you a little bit.

I’m only going to do each word or word part or vowel or diphthong one time.

And you’re going to hear a bunch in a row and you might now know which one it is, it

doesn’t matter just say it back as you hear it.

Okay, now I going to replay all the training you have done.

This time, I’m going to show you on screen what is the word or the word part of the vowel

or diphthong you are hearing.

I’m still going to do it ten times so you have the time to listen and repeat.

This time you know what you are saying.

But don’t let that my knowledge get in the way.

Continue to just build that play it, say it, body, voice, your ear does it, hears it, your

body produces it just like you heard.

You know, I actually hope some of the times you don’t know what you’re hearing.

And I know that sounds weird, it’s like why would Rachel want me to

not have perfect listening comprehension?

But I think it puts you in a different place.

If you don’t know what you’re hearing and you’re asked to repeat it, well what

does that make you feel, what do you have to rely on?

Again, it’s just that idea of wiping all of your knowledge away and responding only

to the moment what you hear.

Trying to reproduce that.

I do a lot of training in my academy, a lot of play it, say it method.

If this interests you, please check it out at Rachelsenglishacademy.com, we do offer

a 30-day money back guarantee so you can try it out.

If you don’t think it’s the best place for you to train you American voice, no problem

just let me know and we’ll cancel you and get you refunded but I do think that you’re

going to love it.

Okay guys, thank you so much for sticking around for watching this training video,

I really do love being your English teacher, I make new lessons here every Tuesday.

That’s it and thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.