English

The student in march of success therefore, must consider speech training an essential part of his
education.
Educators have long recognized that average Filipino student's total ficility in English as a
second language is sadly adequate. This is much more evident in his spoken English are his development
has not parralleled that of his grammar and vocabulary. Very often we hear Filipinos speaking with
correct ____ and good vocabularies but they still sound unintelligible to give speakers of English, mainly
due to inadequacies in stress, rythm and the sound system itself.
The student of any spoken language should always work with a trained and experienced teacher.
A teacher, besides provide, listening, speaking, and testing situation will be best equipment to detect the
student's mistakes and to determine the cause of these mistakes. He will know best what particular
techniques to apply and which exercises to concentrate on.
The student must understand that speech improvement come about only through intelligent and
intensive practice. He must carry over the techniques he has learned into his everyday conversation. The
teacher can only guide; the student, himself, must develop the skill. A student may consider his speech
improved when he has mastered the correct techniques to such a degree, that they may be elicited with
ease. Even though the student's attention is on his thought and not his expression form.
GENERAL TECHNIQUES FOR IMPROVEMENT
The most efficient method of improving one's oral English is by ACCURATE IMITATION and, once
the techniques have been mastered by INTELLIGENT AND INTENSIVE PRACTICE. A child learns imitation.
He listens closely to his parents and to the people around him. As soon as he develops sufficient
muscular control, he imitates the sounds he hears. A period of repetition follows until the habits speech
are established. Our present manner of speaking English is a result of habits developed since we first
imitated our teachers of English, or our parents if the spoke English. Our models may have spoken good
or poor English. Our speech habits today are a combination of the good and poor habits we have picked
up from these models. In order to correct our poor habits, we need to go through the same process of
listening, imitating, and repetition that we went through children. This time, however, we will have to
exert twice much effort since our object will be to eliminate habits already learned and substitutenew
ones.
The student of speech will be given many oppurtunities imitate the speech of good models. He
musttry to imitate as accurately as possible. The different sounds, rhythm, and intonation may at first
sound queer, even funny, but in time and with repetition, they will lose their strangeness.
Aids to Accurate Imitation
1. Perceptive listening - the student's ability to imitate accurately depends not only in his ability
as an imitator, but or his ability to hear accurately what he is to imitate. The student's is seldom aware of
the difference between mere hearing and conscious perceptive listening. This may be because he has a
pre-conceived idea of the pronunciation of a word. When his mode says that particular word, he no
longer finds it necessary to listen closely to the speaker's pronunciation, presuming all the while that the
word is said that same way he, himself, would say it. Imitation may become more accurate if the student
will learn to listen more carefully, will learn to be more perceptive, so that he will be conscious of all the
little peculiarities he is to imitate.
2. Mastery of a system of representing sounds - sometimes, the student will find that careful
listening is not enough. Inspite one's efforts, the student might be hearing and reproducing only few of
the sounds that make up a word. This is especially true with the unstressed vowels found in English. In
this case, the instructor might find it necessary to write out the pronunciation of the word. He will make
use of system of symbols representing sounds, in much the same way that Webster dictionaries make
those of the diacritical system to write out word pronunciation. Thus, the student can see separately all
the symbols that make up a word, then if he is unable to hear all the sounds clearly. Although one must
depend primarily on hearing for the improvement of speech, warning is more efficient when one makes
use of one's eyes as all, for a more accurate analysis.
3. Knowledge of the characteristics of each sound - when the differences between the English
sound and the vernacular counterparts is very fine, merely hearing the sound might not sufficient. It will
be necessary for the student to know what to with the lips, the tongue, and other vocal organs; to know
the length of the sound, and other characteristics which will help him produce the sound correctly
without substituting the vernacular counterparts. For example: it will be helpful for the student know
that the vowel sound (Ɔ) in the word SMALL while seeingly similar to the O in IBON is actually longer in
duration and roduced with the lips pushed forward more.

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The student in march of success therefore, must consider speech training an essential part of his

GENERAL TECHNIQUES FOR IMPROVEMENT

Aids to Accurate Imitation

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