Amazing Effect of Vocal Reading on Pronunciation
Did You Know?
Writing is only about 5,500 years old, unlike human speech estimated to be from 50,000 years to 2 million years old. In contrast to speech, the human brain did not naturally evolve to read. Thus, the brain adapts to the challenge of reading.
The Amazing Effect of Accurate Vocal Reading on Accurate English Pronunciation Article 13
English speech intelligibility increases sharply for North American children when they learn to read. For adult nonnative-born individuals who want acquisition of clear English, reading words, phrases and sentences is an ideal vehicle for helping to learn accurate English pronunciation.
It is in reading words that the speakers learns that there are different meanings for “hit” and “hid,” or “hot” and “hat,” “bottle” and “battle,” “kin” and kind,” “beach” and “b*tch” which rhymes with “witch”.
And in oral reading or reading with your voice, the human being learns that the spelling of the English word most frequently corresponds to the accurate pronunciation.
The process of reading involves most of the brain, especially an interconnection between visual areas and language areas. And importantly reading also involves neural systems related to action, emotion, decision making and memory.
Big alert! The sensorimotor cortex of the brain is the most active region of the brain during reading. A seminal MRI study in 2014 involving adults and children, where bodily movement was restricted, demonstrated strong evidence revealing that this region may be correlated with automatic word processing and decoding. Specifically, this area of the brain was highly active in persons new to the English language, as well as those children learning to read, and those children struggling to read (dyslexia).
Brain Regions Used for Reading?
Here is the description from Wikipedia (Reading):
The occipital and parietal lobes are involved for orthographic processing of visual words
The two major regions of the brain associated with phonological skills (speech sounds) are the temporal-parietal region and the Perisylvian Region (in MRI study, 2001).
The Perisylvian Region, which is the region of the brain believed to connect Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas, is another region highly active during phonological activities when participants are asked to verbalize known and unknown words.
The inferior frontal region is active in several reading related activities associated with comprehension and processing skills such as spelling and working memory.
In addition to regions on the cortex considered gray matter on MRIs, several white matter fasciculus are active during different reading activities. These three white matter regions connect the three respected cortex regions as the brain reads thus these regions are responsible for the brain’s cross-model integration involved in reading. These are the left arcuate faciculus, the left inferior longitudinal faciculus, and the superior longitudinal fasciculus.
The cerebellum, which is not part of the cerebral cortex, is also believed to play an important role in reading. The role of automatization, word accuracy, and reading speed is associated with the cerebellum.
Have you wondered why learning to speak clear English feels so hard? A principal reason is that your brain is working hard to access and coordinate a good number of separate brain regions!”
Article 13, Blog, copyright 2023 Clear Talk Mastery, Inc
B and CH for “Beach” For Fast and Easy Learning Using Human Brain Info
B and CH for “Beach” For Fast and Easy Learning Using Human Brain Info
This is Number 5 in our series of recommended sequence for fast, easy mastery of American English speech sounds. The directed instruction is for English consonants B, CH and the word “beach”.
Your brain organizes the production of speech by phonetic feature and by muscle group of the face.
The speech sound for American English B has the phonetic features of being quick and of having a voice from the vocal folds in your throat and releasing an audible puff of air. The American English B is pronounced by using the fast twitch muscle fibers of the lips by pressing the lips together and then opening the lips quickly.
For the American English speech sound CH, the phonetic features are the release of an audible quick puff of air but no voice from the vocal folds in the throat. The American English CH is pronounced by using the fast twitch muscles fibers of the tip of the tongue by pushing up and pressing the tip of the tongue against the roof or top of the mouth directly behind the top front teeth then bringing the tip of the tongue down quickly.
How do you know if you are doing these accurately in American English? Answer: if your speech sounds match that of Dr. Antonia Johnson’s production on the video below, you are accurate for American English.
Information alert: The pronunciation of those sounds may be different in your first language so pay close attention to the position of the articulators–tongue and lips– the manner which is quick for American English, and the requisite or needed speech sound!
P for “Priority” for Massed and Distributed Practice
This is Number 4 in our series of recommended sequence for fast, easy mastery of American English speech sounds. The directed instruction is for English consonant P and the word “priority.”
It’s estimated it takes 35 accurate repetitions of a new word to memorize it accurately. That’s called massed practice. That will get you in to the associative phase of procedural learning. Getting to the autonomous phase where the pronunciation is automatic and long term learning is gained through even more accurate pronunciation. That is best spread out in time, and is spaced learning or distributed learning or timing. More information? http://www.cleartalkmastery.com/blog/2023/05/10/the-endgame-is-procedural-memory/
By practicing different words, you are giving your motor system and motor memory variety so it can p for producing the P sound with the needed tension in the lips and pressing of the lips when the speech sounds preceding and following the target speech sound are different.
That’s why the words I, 3 and 4 in this series all have directed instruction on the video for the English speech sound p—“probably,” “anticipate,” and “priority. “
Copyright 2023 by Clear Talk Mastery
P for American English and Syllable Pronunciation for Clear Speech
This is our Number 3 in the series of recommended sequence for consonants and vowels.
Like Number 1 which has the word “probably,” this video also directly instructs for the American English (AE) consonant speech sound P.
Ninety, 90, sovereign and non-sovereign entities have English for their official language including India, South Africa, Nigeria, to name a few. (See For more information on “other” Englishes, see http://www.cleartalkmastery.com/blog/2023/03/17/assessment-why-bother/.) However, the pronunciation for the consonant speech sound P is different in other Englishes than American English. The consonant sound for P in American English has a puff of air after the lips are pressed together. If listeners cannot hear that puff of air, they cannot accurately identify it as an American English sound for P. Instead, they are likely to perceive the AE speech sound for F.
To do “clear English speech,” perceptually enhance or make it very easy to hear the puff of air for AE. Make the puff of air loud.
For deliberate pactice here for the consonant sound for P, press your lips together firmly. That tension or stiffness will make the fast twitch muscles grow bigger, stronger. For American English proficiency and mastery, you want the stronger fast twitch muscle fibers in your lips.
Advice for proficiency of AE– practice many times!
That’s why I (Antonia Johnson) am posting this recommended sequence of English speech pronunciation video tutorials (also on YouTube)—to help you get lots of deliberate practice.
English speech proficiency is accuracy in words. In the Accent Reduction Tip Number 71 below, you get video and audio and direct and guided instruction for the AE consonant sound P for the word “anticipate.” Plus, you get coached on syllable pronouncing syllables clearly and accurately. “Clear Speech” is a style or mode of talking where each spoken syllable is clear, not slurred together, so the listener can hear each syllable. All syllables in English have a meaning.
Consider doing this video tip speech instruction (about 2 minutes) multiple times. Aim for AE accuracy each time. Of course, you are getting accuracy on many speech sounds when you deliberately practice words. Deliberate practice means your goal is to get better!
Proficiency?? There’s More to the Story!
Proficiency?? There’s More to the Story. Article 9
The burning question is: How Long Does It Take to Become Proficient for English Speech?
Here’s more of the story. Becoming highly proficient in AE (American English) speech communication includes more than skills for accurate pronunciation and enunciation of AE consonant and vowels. But the fact is, if you don’t have that, then the other proficiency skills are not worth a hill of beans.
Critical is that proficiency means mastering AE word syllable accent stress for multiple syllable words.
Critical is mastering AE voice inflection so your connected speech (sentences) are NOT monotone, flat and boring. Critical are the multiple voice inflection techniques to help listeners understand and remember your information. This is career changing. Experts consider voice inflection to be the critical communication skill to boosting your career.
Proficiency means being able to determine the pronunciation of unfamiliar multiple syllable words. Fact is, each profession has its own core vocabulary and employs other current vocabularies, such as from business, psychology, sociology, and tech, etc. So you need accurate pronunciation of many multiple syllable words for proficiency in English speaking communication.
The keystone here is mastery of dividing into syllables written words to be proficient in pronouncing unfamiliar multiple syllable words. Just so you know, there are eight basic rules for written words and the essential skill of recognizing roots.
Proficiency means being able to determine the meaning of words, especially multiple syllable words, with solid learning of roots, root words, stems and prefixes and suffixes which primarily come from proto-German, Norman French, French, and Latin origins. Sorry guys, English is a polyglot!
There are many levels of learning – skill sets—for proficient English communication. Proficiency includes mastering the most important presentation skills, including persuasive techniques. Notably, presentation skills are typically not taught in the U.S. until latter high school at the earliest, and college. Persuasive speech communication is university level learning.
Recall that numerous motor skills are best learned through extensive repetition of proper form—that’s deliberate practice. Proficiency in accurate, intelligible, and pleasing to the ear, easy to understand and remember information AE speech is also best learned through extensive repetition of “proper form” ( “It’s not practice makes perfect, but perfect practice makes perfect.”)
What does “best learned” mean? It’s what most people want — efficiency in time and long lasting learning.
So here is the deal. Based on our experience (more than 20 years) and expertise,(almost 1000 different human beings from more than 60 countries and first languages), our scientific assessments (pre course, mid course, and post course) , and our past and present deep academic research into multiple topics including motor skill development for the human body, motor skill development for speech (and English), English clear speech, deliberate practice, procedural learning (that’s what acquiring English speech is), linguistics, “deeper” learning, learning methodologies including mastery learning — Antonia Johnson simply loves to learn– we propose the following. Humans need to get perhaps 10 years of practice and likely 4,000 to 8,000 hours of practice under their belts to become highly proficient in American English speech communication.
Does this seem impossible? 10 years and likely between 4,000 and 8,000 hours of practice?
NOT!
Here’s why this is NOT impossible. What is important is how to calculate that “10 years of practice” and the likely between 4,000 and 8,000 hours of practice to become proficient in English speech communication.
DO THIS: include in your calculation your prior instruction in your home country and other English speech instruction perhaps in North America, or France, or Germany, etc. That might add up as much as 5 to 7 years. Then include the amount of time in hours of your taking every opportunity to deliver clear English speech communication in daily life, Then add in any other deliberate practice of clear English speech– maybe for getting ready for a presentation. All those hours count. Every deliberate practice in hours counts!
Fact is, you are closer to proficiency than you think.
Then take a concentrated look at your English speech communication skill. What is missing? Sometimes that self-analysis is painful. But do it.
THEN focus on what is missing or needs to be better..
Then remember this — Concentrated deliberate practice using the distributed practice schedule is the most efficient route to acquiring proficiency in English skill sets. The sequencing of those skill sets can make the mastery easy.
Moderate and high proficiency is the goal for high satisfaction for career and daily life.
Just so you know– minimum proficiency for most professions which use English is 50% whole word intelligibility. Is that proficiency? Not. And that is also why organizations are generally happy to finance or pay the tuition for efficient and long lasting instruction for English speech communication.
50% whole word intelligibility is minimum. Notably, 50% means that listeners are working hard to understand. Frustration and miscommunication are collateral damage at 50% intelligibility. That is recognized by the English talker and supervisors. (More later.)
