The MOST EFFECTIVE Vocal Warm up for Speaking English

Today we’re talking about speaking with a  relaxed, natural American accent by using  

some relaxation exercises. These exercises are  what help my students lower their placement,  

relax their neck and throat area, and  really capture that American sound.

I’m Rachel and I’ve been teaching the American  accent and English listening skills to  

non-native speakers for over 15 years. Check out  Rachelsenglish.com to learn more about improving  

your spoken English and to get a free course:  Top 3 ways to Master the American Accent.

First, to learn more about placement, it might  be helpful to hear a student speaking with two  

different placements. This is Shawn, a student  in Rachel’s English Academy who has been working  

really hard on finding a natural American accent  through lowering placement and relaxation. Hi  

native language is Mandarin. This is how he  sounded when he first joined the Academy.

Hello everybody, my name is Shawn. So today  I’d like to make a free talk video my using  

the random question generator. So, let’s go  to the website and click for a question.

And this is what he sounded like after about 4-6  weeks of practice with the Academy materials.

Hello everybody, my name is  Shawn. So today I’d like to  

make a free talk video my using  the random question generator.

The sound started out pressed in his face,

Hello everybody, my name is Shawn

and now it has relaxed into his whole body.

Hello everybody, my name is Shawn

We’re going to learn a bit more from  Shawn in a moment on how he did this.

First let’s talk about where in the  body I want you to feel the voice,  

then we can talk about relaxation  techniques to get you there.

One of the things I often talk about with  my students is placement. I sometimes feel  

like their voice only comes from their  head and is placed very much so here.  

Whereas my voice when I speak English  rests more here and I feel the placement  

a little lower. Let’s talk a little  bit what happens when you’re speaking.

So the diaphragm here, an involuntary muscle  just like your heart tenses up which pulls  

down a little bit. That turns your lungs into  a vaccuum and it sucks the air in. When your  

diaphragm relaxes the air then comes out. Your  vocal cords here are what make the sound. Think  

of blowing up a balloon and taking the neck of it  pulling it wide so it makes that annoying squeak  

sound. That’s what your vocal cords are. So your  lungs are the balloon and your vocal cords are the  

mouth of the balloon. And this pressure here is  the energy of the voice. So this is the energy,  

the fuel of the voice. And up here we have the  articulators. The tongue, the teeth, the jaw. That  

takes the core sound made by the vocal cords and  shapes them into the sounds of American English.  

I feel like many of my students lack a connection  to this fuel, to the energy and they speak only  

from their face. Of course their body works in  the same way, they’re bringing in the air but  

they seem to have no attachment to it. And their  voice seems completely detached from their bodies.  

But when I speak, I feel my voice very attached to  my body. One exercise you can do to try to focus on  

your body rather than your face when you’re  speaking is just to exaggerate the movement  

here of your abdomen to connect more to a lower  sensation of the breath. Now, you wouldn’t want  

to do that when you’re speaking but it could be a  good exercise for you to get you into your body.

So here we have the fuel and here the  articulation. Now we want our articulators  

to be very relaxed. If there’s any tension in the  throat for example, it will bring the voice up and  

the placement up and then we lose the connection  here to the fuel of the voice to the body.

We don’t want tension in our body, we don’t want  to lose that connection. So we need to relax. My  

colleague Tom and I are going to go through  some exercises now to relax the jaw, tongue,  

lips, neck, and throat so that you can feel  natural and relaxed, speaking without pain,  

as you work on your American accent. These, and  other exercises in Rachels English Academy are  

exactly what Shawn worked with so hard for  those weeks to lower his placement. Another  

Chinese speaker in the Academy noticed Shawn’s  improvement and reached out to him for advice.

I would suggestion that you really take module 3  very seriously because it is, it is very important  

for us to learn how to relax if we want to  discover you know, voices, uh, around the chest,  

you know, how to and then our throat, how to  relax out throat um, it is very important for  

us to learn to relax so that we can discover  the placement you know from here up until here.

You want daily practice, you want  to find relaxation. Now let’s see  

some exercises you can do everyday to relax.

First off you may have heard from teachers  in the past that you need to drop your jaw  

more. More jaw drop. This instruction can create  tension as you work on vowel and diphthong sounds  

that need a bunch of space like ah all and I  and others. Instead of thinking about using  

your muscles to hold the jaw open which can add  tension to the face think of releasing the jaw.  

Let the jaw drop down using gravity rather than  muscle. If you put your fingers just under your  

ears and open and close your mouth, you'll  feel movement of the jaw bone. We’ll call  

this spot the jaw hinge. Think of releasing  your jaw from back here rather than forcing  

the chin down. By doing this we lose the tension  that can affect the sound and we have a fuller  

more open sound. We'll come back to the hinge but  first let's start some jaw relaxation exercises.

Let's start by just easily massaging the jaw with  your fingertips. As you begin freeing the jaw you  

may start to yawn more. Awesome keep yawning.  It's a great stretch and provides you with  

wonderful deep breaths that encourage support.  When you yawn make sure you yawn both vertically  

and horizontally. Really get a great stretch for  the jaw and the lips actually with that one. Now,  

using the heel of your hand, drag the hand  down the jaw bone on the face towards your  

chin. Really thinking about releasing that  jaw hinge and letting the face muscles relax.

I look silly.

Hmm.

But it is relaxing.

Totally okay to look silly it's great actually.  Oh I feel so good. Now let's go back to that  

hinge we spoke about earlier back here. Allow  your newly relaxed jaw to release down for a  

moment and feel that space that opens up under  your ear as the hinge releases down. This is a  

great pressure point on our face. By pressing into  it we can release the jaw even more. Now this can  

feel quite painful so don't hurt yourself  but it will feel great when you let go.

Oh now take your chin between thumb and  index finger and move the jaw up and down.

Well, ah it's hard.

Don't hurt yourself on this one.

Yeah, watch your tongue.

It can be very difficult, yeah make sure  your tongues not in the way. But really let  

your hand control your jaw. You'll feel the  jaw kind of try to fight back a little bit,  

see if you can relax it and just  let your hand be in control.

Yeah, my jaw definitely does  not want to give up control.

Yeah, yeah. So lots, lots to work on.

Now, if you haven't felt silly already,  

prepare to. And if you're really relaxed  prepared to let a little saliva fly around.  

Now clasp your hands together and shake  your body and face keeping that released.

I don't know if I'm willing to do that on camera.

Come on Rachel.

Okay. Do it again.

Let's use this newly released jaw a bit  and practice on some vowel sounds. Some  

vowel sounds that use some jaw drops  so ah and oh, now let's go from u,  

which has a tight lip rounding  here, u and move into all oh.

U-oh

Now let's move from u into ah.

U-ah

You can practice going back and  forth and this may help you hear  

and feel the difference between those two sounds.

Alright. Hopefully your jaw feels more relaxed,  

remember to do this whenever you feel tension  creep in as you practice and drill and when  

you're having trouble finding the difference  between vowel sounds it may just be that you  

want more space and the best way to  create space is to release that jaw.

From the L to the R to the T. The tongue is  very important when it comes to articulation  

of all kinds of sounds. So having a  relaxed tongue that can move quickly  

and efficiently is a very good thing. Let’s  learn how to relax this very strong muscle.

Just how strong is the tongue? Very. It’s  considered the strongest muscle in the body  

in relation into its size. One way to see how  strong it is, is to put your pinky finger to  

the roof of your mouth and then pin your pinky  finger to the roof of the mouth with the tongue.

Like that.

Now, have a tongue versus pinky war.

If you’re like me, your tongue wins  every time and your pinky hurts. Ow.

So let’s relax this mega muscle.

First, stick out your tongue. Make sure you have  clean hands for this and massage your tongue. Now,  

this may feel weird but it’s a good way to get  to know this muscle that works so hard for us.

I’ve never done that before.

It’s strange. It’s a strange feeling.  But it actually kind of feels good.

Uhuh.

Now, stick your tongue out again and this  time, see if you can go from relaxed to  

pointed to relaxed and back and forth  without tensing the rest of the face.

It’s hard to do it without tensing your  lips. You can get there eventually but  

just to start just begin exploring that ability.

Maybe give them a side angle of that.

Sure.

Alright. At first you may feel like you  need to tense the lips and jaw to tense  

the tongue. But eventually, you’ll be able  to isolate the tension to the tongue alone.

Then, keeping the tip of the tongue behind  the front teeth where it stays for almost  

all of the vowel sounds. Do some tongue  push-ups or push-outs to be more accurate.

Oh, I’ve never seen that before either so you’ll  

stick out the middle of the tongue  giving the tongue a good stretch.

Wow, you’re really good at that.  Did you learn this in acting school?

I did.

Okay.

I spent a lot of time doing  these exercises in school.

Let me try.

It’s hard if you’re not used to it.

Yeah. It’s a little bit of a strange  movement. But again, doing this will  

help you have a great relationship with  all of what’s happening in your mouth so  

that when you’re working with a teacher  or when you’re working with yourself and  

you learn about where the tongue is supposed  to be, it may become easier to do that new  

movement or action with your tongue because  you’ve been able to have these exercises.

Yeah.

Now, one way to help yourself is  to put your hand in front of your  

tongue and reach towards your hand to  give yourself a bit of a challenge. 

Now, I will never reach my hand  but it’s something to reach for.

Now, my least favorite exercise but a great  one for the tongue, we’re going to circle the  

tongue around the mouth in both directions.  Now, imagine that you’ve got peanut butter  

stuck on your gums and you’re going to circle the  tongue around trying to get the peanut butter out.

Hmm, I kind of like that one.

Yeah?

Yeah. Why is that your least favorite.

Because when you do it ten times  one way and ten times the other,  

your tongue starts to really get sore. So  work up to ten times one way and then you  

can switch to ten times the other  way but you can starts with five.

Now, drop your head, relax the  tongue out of the mouth and shake.

Oh boy. Do I have to try that?

Give it a shot.

Okay, better hold my hair.

Perfect! Such relaxation.

Yeah.

Now, you should feel the tongue release all  the way in the back of the mouth and as you  

do this, some saliva may fly around. If so,  congratulations, you’re doing it perfectly.

Now, let’s practice some articulation  with this newly relaxed tongue.

So that’s using the unvoiced T sound,  now let’s try the voiced D sound.

And you can just feel the  very tip of your tongue on the  

gum right there for that nice light  touch efficient T and D. Let’s try—

And then, some fun practice. Trumpet players  call this double tonging. It’s to articulate  

the tongue in the front with the tip of the  tongue for the T and then a K sound at the back.

Oh wow! When you do that you just  feel your tongue going back and forth.

Yeah. It’s really fun.

Alright, nice job. Remember, this is a  great way to know your tongue and maybe  

helpful when it comes to dealing with  complicated consonant clusters that  

involve the tongue in words like strike,  plurals and twelfth. Those are tough ones.

Some of my students have a hard time moving their  

tongue without moving their jaw. So  as you do some of these exercises,  

make sure you do some holding the jaw firm so that  that tongue is moving independently like this.

You should be able to do it  without moving the jaw at all.

If you’re having a hard time, try  holding on to the jaw lightly.

To really focus your effort on the tongue.

I don’t know about you but when I was a kid,  one of the funny faces that I love making was  

the fish face. The lips are two wonderful  articulators for many sounds. B, P, F, V,  

M, W as well as rounding for vowels  and diphthongs like u, uh, o, ou, au.

Let’s practice some relaxation  exercises that will help our  

lips become as flexible and versatile  as possible. Let’s start by massaging  

the lips which are really mostly skin  and mucus membrane, anywhere you like.

I can’t do that because I’m  using lipstick otherwise I would.

I like to spend some time on the corners of the  lips where there is some muscle that you can feel.

Now, blow through your lips like we’re  making the sound of an airplane or a boat.

This can be a good chance to connect with your  support and blow through the lips from support.

Haha! I’m going to go higher than you.

You know that really is hard if  you have any tension in your lips.

Yeah. They won’t do that. Singers do that too.

You can start by blowing  through just with the breath.

And then add voice to it.

Now, let’s try to fish face. Can you do it?

It actually feels pretty good.

Now here again, let’s drop our  heads and shake the lips out.

Do I have to do that again?

You don’t have to if you don’t want to.

Uh, it messes up my hair.

Haha!

Wow, so when you’re doing these exercises,  

try not to wear lipstick and  do it before you do your hair.

And pull your hair back in a bun.

Now, let’s work on some vowel  sounds with the lips so u-i.

U-i

So the lips start very forward and rounded and  then pulled back in the corners for that e vowel.

U-i

And now we’re going to get the jaw involved  on this next one. We’ll go from U where the  

lips are rounded forward into oh,  oh, where the jaw will drop a bit.

U-oh

And now, let’s go from U-i to U-Oh.

U-I, U-Oh

Nice. Now, drop your head and  shake your lips out again.

And you’re done!

When you help students find the uh sound which  we consider the core sound of American English,  

we often suggest finding a chest  resonance or a lower resonance to  

help them find the sound. The way to  find that lower resonance is to relax  

your neck and throat and connect the  vibrations of your sound to your body.

Here are a few exercises to relax your neck  and throat and access that body connection.

First, let’s just relax the head down, chin to  chest and massage the back and sides of the neck.

I can do that.

This should feel really good.

Oh it does.

Feel free to give your shoulders some love.

You may also feel like sighing as you do this.  A nice easy sound carried by easy breath.

Huuh

Great.

Now let’s roll our head around starting  slowly. Just let your head hang down with  

the chin on the chest and start to  gently roll it back and forth. Just  

a little bit. Don’t go too far. Stay  slow and then start rolling it up even  

further on each side. Then eventually  you can go around the whole circle.

How’s that feel Tom?

That feels really good.

Now, as you go around the full circle,  if you feel any spot that feels tense,  

you feel a little bit ache in as you go  around. Really focus on that. Maybe get  

your fingers and rub that out so that you can  go ahead and free the neck, all the way around.

Now drop one ear to your shoulder. While  you do this, gently reach your right hand  

towards the ground. You’ll feel a little  stretch in the right side of you neck.

Don’t go too far. Just do what feels  good to release then switch sides.

How you doing there Tom?

This is great.

Now, leading with your eyes, look over your left  

shoulder as far as you can but  of course, don’t hurt yourself.

And switch.

Here’s one that may feel a little bit  weird at first. Let’s start with a very  

relaxed face. The jaw should be relaxed and  possible hanging open just a little bit.

Let’s just sigh. Nice full  breath in and a relaxed sigh out.

Let a little sound out with the sigh.

Let the vibrations from the  sound relax the throat even more.

Now put both hands on either side of your  larynx and very gently jiggle it back and forth.

As you do this, continue your easy breath in  and easy sigh out. If you’re able to do this,  

then that means your throat is  relaxed because it’s impossible  

to do this with a lot of throat tension.

Lastly, let’s rub out hands together so  they’re nice and warm and then place them  

around your neck, a natural heating pad.  Though it cools down a little too quickly.

Now, with your newly relaxed neck and throat,  

sigh on ah, and see if you can  feel the vibration in the chest.

Ah

This relaxation will really come in handy  as you work on your American English.

A lot of my students who speak with natural  throat tension because of their native language  

have a hard time identifying the tension because  it’s so normal to them. So, one way to work with  

this to try to move your placement down is  just to think of opening up the neck some.

And all of these exercises will help  so go through all of these exercises  

and then think of an opening sensation  so that your voice can rest more here.  

Anytime there’s tension in the neck,  it brings the placement up higher.  

But we want the American English to  feel like it’s coming from here.

You’ve learned so much about relaxing. Now,  see how it affects sounds by studying different  

placements in this video, where I listen to  you and give you feedback on your placement.  

This is a topic that I’m so passionate  about. Don’t forget to get the free course  

Top 3 Ways to Master the American Accent at  rachelsenglish.com/free. Please hit subscribe  

with notifications on and keep your learning  going now with this video. I absolutely love  

being your english teacher. That’s it and  thanks so much for using Rachel’s English.