Articulation Exercises

Even if your speech contents are thoughtful and profound, you need to know how to deliver them effectively. Your expressions need audience! The great leaders who have ruled and enlightened the world have all been great orators. Great orators are lucid and flamboyant in their enunciation. It is not that all are born great rhetoricians. Never mind if you are not gifted, a certain degree of effort and articulation exercises can do wonders for your oratory skills. Most people believe that those who are born with speech impediments only require articulation exercises. It is not true though. Those who aspire to be voice-over artists, stand-up performers or even great orators need a couple of simple techniques up their sleeve for greater success. These techniques are what enables them to speak more lucidly and emphatically. Children make erroneous pronunciation at the initial stages, which are particularly amusing and frivolous. However, if after a certain age, it doesn’t change, then the child is said to be suffering from some kind of speech disorder. In such cases, articulation exercises may be of immense help in overcoming and even eliminating the impediments. If a child is diagnosed with speech disorders, it is suggested that these techniques must be adopted and implemented by their parents at the very inception.

How To Improve Your Diction
Here are some articulation exercises, which will enable you to gain command on your verbal communications.

Concentrate On Your Tongue
Try to gain a better control over your tongue. Talk to yourself when you are alone or read aloud. It will allow your tongue to have a great deal of flexibility and agility. It will lead you to possess an absolute command over your tongue, and you will turn into a flamboyant speaker.

Work On Strengthening Your Articulation Muscles
Articulation disorders are often due to inefficacy of the muscles involved. Running the tongue around the walls of the mouth and stretching the jaws are good exercises to start with. Chewing gum and sucking through straws are good for mouth muscles. Practice tongue twisters as frequently as possible. Try to be really fast while reciting tongue twisters and maintain clarity. If you falter, start again. While speaking publicly, speak slowly and carefully, putting desired stress upon every word. Sprout every word as clearly as possible. Here is a popular tongue twister that will be of great assistance to your cause:

A tree toad loved a she-toad
Who lived up in a tree?
He was a two-toed tree toad
But a three-toed toad was she.
The two-toed tree toad tried to win
The three-toed she-toad’s heart,
For the two-toed tree toad loved the ground
That the three-toed tree toad trod.
But the two-toed tree toad tried in vain.
He couldn’t please her whim.
From her tree toad bower
With her three-toed power
The she-toad vetoed him.

Listen To Yourself
Recite a poem or narrate a story and record it. Listen to it afterwards. It will help you to figure out the words or letters you need to put more emphasis on. Take note and amend the flaws. Keep repeating the process and keep comparing with the last results.

Meditate
Doing meditation will certainly help. There are plenty of exercises. Choose any relevant exercise and keep practicing. They are light yet effective. Practice breathing exercises as well.

Mirror Exercises
One must get an idea of how his or her mouth moves while speaking. Pick some dialogue from your favorite movie and try to mimic the style in which it was delivered. Stand and speak in front of a mirror. You will know how your mouth moves while speaking and consult an expert on how you should go about it in order to cure the anomalies, if any.

Listen To The Speeches Of Great Orators And Imitate
Collect some of the great speeches of great orators and listen to them over and over again. Notice where and when they pause. How certain words or phrases are stressed or emphasized on. Imitate and consider yourself for a moment to be one of them, speak the way they did and recalibrate your speech. For instance, Swami Vivekananda’s great speech at the art institute of Chicago is an epitome of the art of oration. Listen to it carefully and practice.

Talk To The Close Ones
Talk to your family members without the fear of being ribbed or mocked at. Talk as much as possible in order to overcome the obstacles you are facing regarding your speech. Recite a poem or read a story aloud in front of them even if you are facing difficulties in the process and faltering repeatedly at certain words or sounds. Do it on a regular basis. Don’t be afraid, your intimate ones won’t ridicule you even if you are severely lacking in your oratory skills. However, it will certainly give your moral a boost for public speaking. Let them express their opinions and help you know the areas where you are facing most difficulties and how they think it should be done.

A Glimpse Of The Prescribed Exercises

• Stretch the muscles.
• Listen to yourself.
• Meditate.
• Perform mirror exercises.
• Listen to the great orator and imitate.
• Practice tongue twisters.

Speech is the most important medium of manifesting one’s emotions and connecting to others. Hence, speech impediments are a bane to one’s existence. Speech impediments are not incurable. Just pay heed to these suggestions in order to obviate them. There are techniques, which might be simple but tiresome and annoying at times. Hence, the articulation techniques must be mingled with a certain degree of creativity and implemented accordingly to make articulation exercises more amusing. If you can adopt and apply these techniques as a part of your day-to-day life, your speech impediments can be easily cured in no time and by undergoing no pain at all.