Using Tongue Twisters for Your Pronunciation

Take a look at this tongue twister.

Betty Botter bought some butter,

“But,” she said, “this butter’s bitter. 

If I bake this bitter butter

It will make my batter bitter.

But a bit of better butter – 

That would make my batter better.” 

So she bought a bit of butter, 

Better than her bitter butter, 

And she baked it in her batter, 

And the batter was not bitter.

So it was better Betty Botter

Bought a bit of better butter. 

I think tongue twisters are great to help learners of English with their pronunciation. Just like you need to build your muscles to life heavy objects, you need to build the muscles in your mouth to speak a foreign language. Tongue twisters are like taking your mouth to the gym – lots of fun repetition to improve your pronunciation of those difficult sounds.

Here is a video to help you.



I think the Betty Botter tongue twister is great because it practises the most difficult part of English pronunciation – vowel sounds. Here are the similar words and the different pronunciations. Use this interactive phonetic chart to help you. Let me know how it goes.

Big thanks to Inna, who brought this tongue twister to class!

‘Betty’ /’beti:/

‘Botter’ /’bɒtə/

‘bought’ /’bɔ:t/

‘butter’ /’bətə/

‘bitter’ /’bɪtə/

‘batter’ /’bætə/

‘But a’ /’bətə/ (the same pronunciation as ‘butter’ when it is said quickly)

‘bit of’ /’bɪtə/ (the same pronunciation as ‘bitter’ when it is said quickly)

‘better’ /’betə/

Learning and Forgetting Vocabulary

Do you see the link on the top bar?  The one that says 1000 Challenge.  It goes to a page that talks about a language learning challenge I did earlier this year.  Learning 1000 new words in a foreign language.  I was quite successful – in one month I memorized 869 new words and phrases.  However, that was in July and now it is October.  After the challenge finished, I had a holiday, I was busy with other projects and I was lazy – I didn’t continue studying and now I probably remember about 200/300 words. :-(

This is not surprising and it is explained very well in this article, 'Do not forget The Forgetting Curve'.  I highly recommend reading the article.  It talks about spaced repetition.  This means, learning something and then going back (meaning ‘returning’) to it a day later, a week later, a month later.  I did not review the words I learned after July 1^st and that is why I do not remember all 869 of my words.  However, I still remember 200/300 new words and phrases - and that is not bad!

How I originally learned all those words and phrases in one month was with note cards.  Aaron Myers wrote a short blog post, 'The Stack', about using note cards to help you put language learning in more parts of your life; on the bus, waiting in a line.  These are perfect moments to continue your language learning.

So I did my challenge to inspire people and to raise money for charity.  Giving my money and time to charity is one of the most enjoyable things I do.  It makes me feel really good about myself and it motivates me to do more things because I am doing those things to help other people, not just me.

So have I convinced any of you to do something similar?  I know that I have one friend who is going to do a similar challenge to improve his Japanese.  However, if you are a learner of English and you are reading this, can I convince you to do your own 1000 Challenge?

Please say yes.  Choose a learning goal, choose a month, choose a charity and then get started.  If you are on Twitter then tell people about your challenge using the hashtags: #educharity and #ellchar.  Have I inspired you to push yourself, to challenge yourself, to do something that will help you and an organization that needs support?

Please say yes.  If you like the idea then suggest it to a friend or suggest it to a family member and give them help.  Suggest it to your teacher, suggest it to your students, suggest it to your boss or whoever.  The idea is do language learning and to help charity.

Please say yes. :-)

Remember, English for exams is NOT authentic!

Basically, good English is not always good for exams. However, this is not a bad thing. Let me explain.  (Also, if you are not preparing for an exam, keep reading because not all of this post is about English for exams.)

What is authentic language?

Authentic language is real language. Authentic English language is unplanned and unchanged language from native speakers. It’s the language that is used between two fluent speakers in a natural conversation.

What is the purpose of an exam?

The purpose of an exam is to test and assess language ability. You have to show how much you can do with your English in short period of time for the speaking (11 minutes for IELTS, 14 minutes for FCE, 15 minutes for CAE, 20 minutes for the TOEFL speaking test) and a limited number of words in your writing (400 words for IELTS, 330 words for FCE, 480 words for CAE, 525 words for TOEFL).

So within this short period of time you really have to show off (meaning to demonstrate) your English and use all the different forms you know as well as a good variety of vocabulary.  Remember, if you don’t use the language during the speaking test then the examiner won’t know that you have it.

Good English does not always pass!

Sir Winston Churchill, Prime Minister
of Britain (1940-45, 1951-55)
(Picture from Wikipedia)

Here is part of a very important speech in British history.  This speech by Winston Churchill, the prime minister of Britain during most of World War 2, was incredibly important in motivating the people of Britain to continue fighting during a time when Britain was losing the war.  I don’t want to give you a history lesson but this speech was possibly the most important speech in Britain in the 20^th century.

However, this speech recently failed an English assessment!  Read and listen to the most famous part of the speech here.

listen to ‘Winston Churchill - We Shall Fight’ on Audioboo

"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France,

we shall fight on the seas and oceans, 

we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air,

we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be,

we shall fight on the beaches, 

we shall fight on the landing grounds, 

we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, 

we shall fight in the hills; 

we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

The computer system that marked the speech didn’t like the repetition. The speech uses the phrase “We shall...” at least 12 times. The repetition was a very important and useful part of the speech, but for an English exam it is not good. Repetition is a tool that we use in spoken and written English to emphasise a point and it is used a lot in speech writing, especially by politicians. However, for English exams, it does not help you because it only shows a small part of your language knowledge.

Have a mental checklist

Make checklist in your mind for
your speaking and writing.
(Photo from Flickr)

So it is a good idea to have mental checklist.  A list in your head of things you should try to include when you are speaking and writing in the exam.  Here is a short list for you to start with (there are plenty of other things to add):

• Conditionals (e.g. If you learn how to use these different forms of English, you’ll have no problems in your speaking and written exams.)
• Passive Voice (e.g. This blog post was written to help learners of English understand and prepare for their English exams.)
• Relative Clauses (e.g. This blog, which started in February 2011, exists to help learners of English.)
• Adverbs (e.g. Both the teacher and the students were 'terribly pleased'* when everyone passed the exam.)
• Comparatives/Superlatives (e.g. The CAE test is definitely designed to be more difficult than the FCE test but the CPE is certainly the hardest test of them all.)
• Reported Speech (Gordon said that the CAE test was definitely designed to be more difficult than the FCE test but the CPE was certainly the hardest test of them all.)

So all of these are useful parts of English to use in your speaking and writing to show the examiner what you can do.

If you are not taking an exam, this is still useful

Yes, even if you are not doing an exam, focusing on these parts of English is still very important.  It is important for your accuracy to practise these parts of English separately sometimes.

Here are some videos to explain.  The first video shows a martial arts drill.  A drill is an exercise of repetition, where only one action is practised and repeated again and again so that the student can focus and improve on one specific area.  This is not an authentic fight but it is an important part of martial arts training.

You can see that this action alone would not be very useful in a fight.  However, when you put this action together with other actions then you can get something like this! (One of the most exciting martial arts fights I’ve ever seen! - Just click on play, it will start at the exciting part.)

So from this martial arts example, it is easy to see that the same rules apply to language learning. You've got to do the drills, practising your conditionals 'over and over and over' (meaning again and again and again), practising your use of passive voice over and over and over, practising your comparatives and superlatives over and over and over. This way they become better and better, you use them with more accuracy and fewer mistakes.

Then when you put them all together you get a grammatically accurate piece of writing or a grammatically great conversation.

* "terribly pleased" - Although 'terrible' is a negative word, we can use the adverb 'terribly' to mean 'very' in a positive way.  So this actually means "very pleased" and it is a positive sentence.  You can see the same use with 'awfully'.

Marcia Lima's "secret" to language learning

I just read this on Marcia Lima's blog and just had to share it with you:

"My secret to language learning was perspiration, really!"

Perspiration = sweating = hard work!

"I always had to be very systematic about what I was to learn: I diligently listened to audio cassettes in English and wrote down the tapescript (it must be said that this was not as fun as listening to songs and writing down the lyrics, but just as effective!)."

An excellent way to improve listening and writing skills and, as Marcia says, song lyrics are a fun option.

"I also wrote word lists and illustrated the meaning of the words with pictures and/or sentences and memorized loads of chunks of language. Yes, memorization!!! I memorized lists of vocabulary, phrasal verbs and even interviews in English: questions and looooong answers. I can’t say I enjoyed the memorization process, but when I succeeded, I felt really proud and challenged myself with further memorization. I wasn’t aware of the role of memorization in foreign language learning back then... I was just a teen, but I was able to enjoy its benefits anyway. Today, if asked for advice, I’d certainly say: be systematic about what you learn."

Memorization, memorization, memorization!  It's not the only thing you need to learn a language, but it would be impossible to learn a language without it.

Thanks Marcia, great advice!  Go visit her blog and leave a comment or send her a tweet!

A Short Piece of Advice... Look Again

Learning new things is good, but it is surprising how quickly we forget things.  I am the same.  During my 1000 Challenge for Charity I had to learn 1000 new Spanish words and phrases and it is surprising how quickly I am forgetting words that I thought I had memorized completely.

Remember, those notes will not help you unless you
actually look at them! (Picture from Flickr)

So my advice is very simple; look again at notes you wrote a few months ago, look again at worksheets from your previous classes, look again at previous chapters of your coursebook that you have already done, even look again at online lessons or exercises you think are too easy for you – you might be surprised by one or two small things you forgot about.

Learning new things is good, but re-learning those things you forgot is very important as well.  Looking again at your notes and old work does not take a lot of time but I guarantee it will make your language much stronger.

Holidays

I've talked about repetition; the 75 times you need to really acquire new language (see previous post).  Well holidays are a perfect way to use some of your English again and again and again.

If you are studying in an English speaking country, this might be especially useful for you.  Think about the questions you are asked when you return from holiday or just a long weekend.  They are always the same:

“Where did you go?  What did you see?  What did you do?  Did you enjoy it?  Who did you go with?  What was your favourite place?  Oh, I’ve been there, did you visit ______?  What did you think of ______?”

What a wonderful opportunity for your English!  You know what questions to expect and you can learn, prepare and rehearse your answers.

Let's look at a few phrases you can use for each of these questions.  Remember, vocabulary is good but learning and acquiring complete phrases helps with fluency.  To make this post prettier, I've also included some photos of a recent holiday I had on the border of Argentina and Brazil.  Enjoy

The ruins of a Jesuit mission, San Ignacio Mini, Misiones, Argentina

1.     Where did you go?

I spent a few days in… (you stayed in one place)

I spent a few days travelling around… (you stayed in one general area but visited a few specific places in that area)

I went/travelled up to… (if the destination was north)

I went/travelled down to… (if the destination was south)

I went/travelled over to… (if east or west)

I went with some friends up to…

In the background is Paraguay, on the right is Brazil and I am standing in Argentina!

2.     What did you see?

Well, where to begin? (a rhetorical question for yourself, which gives you more time to think and explains you have a long story to tell)

I saw lots of stuff actually.  I saw… (then give a list)

The waterfalls at Iguazu on the Brazilian side.

3.     What did you do?

What did I not do? (a great reply that explains you did a lot of things – make sure you really emphasise the ‘not’ and say it with a smile on your face)

I did a bit of… (climbing, shopping, sunbathing, kayaking, hiking, waterskiing, reading… the list goes on and on and on)

I actually did a lot more than I expected.  I… (then give details – this is if you did more than was in your original plan)

Not as much as I’d wanted.  I… (then give details – if you did less than was in your original plan.

4.     Did you enjoy it?

Definitely!  It was exactly what I wanted.  (it was a perfect vacation and it is what you excepted)

Definitely!  It was exactly what I needed.  (it was perfect and helped you to relax)

Immensely!  (100% brilliant!)

Very much so, yes!  (90-100%)

Hmm, not that much because… (30-40%)

Yeah, more or less, but I think _______ could have been better.  (your vacation was 50/60% and there are one or two things you didn’t like – for pronunciation help with this, take a look at this previous post)

The Iguazu waterfalls on the Argentinian side.

5.     Who did you go with?

I just went by myself (no travelling companions; alone)

I went with…

I was going to go by myself but I ended up going with _________. (the original plan was to go alone but this plan changed and you went with another person)

6.     What was your favourite place?

Well, I particularly liked… (you want to talk about a specific thing that you liked on holiday)

________, without a doubt. (a tag at the end of the answer to explain that one place was much better than all the other places)

That’s a difficult question.  I guess I’d have to say… (if you are not sure about your answer or there was more than one really good place)

I probably enjoyed ______ more than anything else. (this is not as strong as ‘without a doubt’ and shows that there were a few things that you really enjoyed)

Breathtaking and spectacular, isn't it?

7.     Oh, I've been there.  Did you visit _____?

Yeah, what did you think of it?

Of course! (an obvious place to visit that would be impossible to miss)

No, we didn’t have time to go there.

No, we didn’t have the opportunity to go there.

No, I really wanted to but…

8.     What did you think of_____?

I thought it was spectacular.  (amazing)

I thought it was breathtaking.  (very impressive)

To be honest, I wasn’t very impressed with _______ because...  (under 50%)

It was alright but not as good as everyone was saying. (50-60% but people told you that it was 100% amazing)

It would have been great but it was spoiled by… (a good place/event was much less fun because of something that happened – bad weather, for example)

75 Times

Yes.  In this case 75 is the magic number.  It is believed that a learner needs to hear a word about 75 times before they have acquired it.  If you don’t believe me, look here (http://langwitches.org/blog/2011/03/30/listening-comprehension-podcasting/).

First, let’s look at learned vs acquired.  There is a BIG difference.

Learned - How many times have you learned about the rules of the present perfect?  How many rules have you written in your notebooks?  How many times have you got it wrong when speaking?  How many times have you needed to stop and think if you should use present perfect or past simple?

Probably you have had LOTS of lessons about present perfect vs past simple.  You’ve learned it and you know the rules but you still need to think about it and sometimes you know you get it wrong.  That’s because you haven’t acquired it.

Acquired – Ok, now if I say to you, “Hey, how’re you doing?” then you will probably say something like “I’m fine thanks.”  Now, were you thinking about the grammar? 

Were you thinking, “Is it ‘I fine’ or ‘I am fine’?”   Probably not.  You don’t need to think about that because you have acquired it.  You have heard it so many times, from so many different people.  You don’t think about it, you just do it, you just know it, you just have it.

That’s the difference between learning and acquiring.  I never really learned English, I simply acquired it.  We don’t learn our native languages, we acquire them.  Yes, of course, we learn about our languages at school but we already know them because we have already acquired them.

So how long does it take to acquire new words and phrases in English?  75 times, more or less.  You need to hear the word, the phrase, the context approximately 75 times before it is comfortably part of your English.

But remember this is not only passive hearing.  It is active listening.  You can help yourself and speed up this process by actively listening.  I know lots of students who don’t have very advanced English, but they know every single exact word to their favourite English-speaking songs.  How many times do you think they listened to those songs?

It is important to learn the rules of a language we want to use well.  It helps our understanding.  However, you also need to make an effort, use the language you’re not sure about a lot, make sure you are corrected a lot and make sure you do lots of active listening for what you want to understand better.  Past tense verbs, phrasal verbs or conditionals, for example.

So, that English podcast you listened to, that TV show you watched, that IELTS listening practice you have… have you listened to them enough times?  Almost certainly not.  Just listen to it one more time, go on!

What do you think and what is your experience of learning and acquisition?  As always, I look forward to your opinions.

Gordon