Are You Standing Correctly? I Will Begin...

As we explored in my last blog, it’s essential to care for your voice - to warm it up before long periods of speech and strengthen it safely.  It’s also important to ensure your body is warmed up and aligned so that it can support your voice through the day.

It’s basically all about our posture. 

We were told growing up not to slouch, to lift our heads – shoulders back, chest out!  Whilst we don’t want to walk around like strutting peacocks all the time, the mantra of shoulders back, chest out, head up is a great one to follow at key times through the day, to ensure you are walking tall, keeping the chest open and the breath flowing. Warming up the body also ensures there’s no unnecessary tension in the shoulders, chest area or neck that could impact the quality of voice created.

Here are a few things I try to do at certain points during the day to re-align things and stretch-out the unnecessary tension:

1)    Neck Rolls – similar to the usual neck stretches you would do before a yoga session, these exercises help to loosen the neck and head and relieve any tension. They must be done slowly and gently to avoid any over-straining of the neck. Align your breathing to the stretches as well so the muscles are supported as they go through the warm-up.

a.    Start by looking straight ahead and slowly move your head to the right, keeping the body grounded and facing forward

b.    Hold for 30secs and bring back to the middle. Repeat 3 times

c.     Do the same on the left side

d.    Next move your head to the right and look down so you feel the stretch along the back and side of the neck.  Again hold for 30secs, repeat 3 times and do the same on the left side

e.    Next move your head to the right and this time slowly raise your head to the ceiling.  Hold for 30 secs, repeat 3 times and do the same on the left

2)    Walking Tall – this is a great exercise to get your posture back after a period of sitting down or if you’re feeling a bit ‘slouchy’.  If you’re in the office or somewhere public you’ll probably want to find a quiet corner to do this as it may look a little strange….

a.    Stand with your heels, buttocks, shoulders and head against a wall

b.    Take a step away from the wall, leaving just your head leaning against it

c.     Hold that position for about 10secs (or as long as comfortable), then place a heel back against the wall, push off and start walking

d.    You will feel taller, more confident and in control!

3)    Centred – this is a simple exercise which you can do at your desk, on the bus, in a meeting… basically anywhere.  Ensure your spine is supported, look straight ahead and feel your head rest gently on the top of the spine.  Be conscious of any tension in your shoulders or top of the neck; if you feel you’re actively supporting your head then it’s not in the rest position.  Once you feel it’s supported and there’s no tension, take 3 deep breaths and feel the head, spine and rest of the body re-align

4)    Big Stretch – this is probably another one you want to do in a quiet corner or at least somewhere with a bit of space.  It’s a good way to wake up the body, get the air flowing again and relieve any stiffness, especially if you’ve been sitting for too long:

a.    Stand with legs shoulder-width apart and hands by your side

b.    Raise your arms out to the side and over your head in a large arc and at the same time breathe out making an ‘oooooooo’ sound

c.     Hold your arms above your head for a couple of seconds and lower back to your side

d.    Repeat 4 times making different sounds on the out-breath each time

So, if you do these warm-up and wake-up exercises through the day, in addition to the exercises to strengthen the voice, you will be well on your way to developing a voice others will be jealous of!

Success speaks for itself!

Sarah Schubert is a professional Voice coach and Leadership Development consultant. Passionate about good communication and with over 20yrs international experience in the Corporate and Performing Arts arena, she blends voice development with business and personal productivity in a unique way. Visit her website New Voice Communications for more information on the services offered.

Calling all Teachers, Receptionists, Sales People....

We use our voice everyday but we do use it in the right way?  Sounds like a strange question doesn’t it because speaking is so natural for the majority of us but as with everything, there is a right and wrong way to speaking and looking after your voice. 

We want to sound our best everyday; first impressions are not only created through the clothes you wear, how you hold yourself and personal grooming but also how you sound.  You may wear the power suit with the big shoulders but if you have a quiet, raspy voice you won’t make the same impression on your audience. As a business owner, I am on the phone or in meetings everyday with potential clients and I need to ensure I sound my best, especially as I am selling services to improve an individual’s voice and communication!  This is the same for Teachers, Receptionists, Sales professionals, Singers  – your voice is your tool and you need to look after it.

Here are a few things I do everyday and before important meetings that I’d suggest everyone does if you want to maintain a healthy, strong voice:

1)    Breathing Exercises – breathing is more natural to us than speaking and we need to breathe correctly to support our voice through the day. Taking in 3 diaphragmatic breaths wakes up the body, opens the lungs and ribcage and allows you to sustain a deeper, more resonant voice.  I do this in the morning and at regular intervals through the day, especially before important meetings.

2)    Developing Breath – we can all breathe (I hope!), and some of us can hold our breath for longer than others but how come? Generally this is done to lung capacity and using the diaphragm to control how the breath is exhaled.  A simple exercise, done regularly, designed to make you say more in one breath is an excellent way of expanding your lung capacity and strengthening your diaphragm control.

3)    Creating Resonance – do you sing in the shower? To develop your pitch range and resonance this is the perfect place to ‘stretch’ your vocal cords.  Making an ‘mmmmmmmmm’ sound and going up and down scales not only makes you more aware of the resonance in your voice already but helps develop and expand your pitch range and can bring more ‘music’ to your voice.  The steam of the shower also helps to protect your vocal cords from any over-straining.

4)    Hydration – drinking lots of water through the day and avoiding caffeine is a good tip for keeping healthy as well as for maintaining a strong voice.  While the nerves may need a boost of caffeine, I try to have a hot tea with honey before an important meeting as this helps to

keep the vocal cords lubricated; caffeine has been known to dehydrate so it’s best to avoid this if possible.

These are just a few of the things I do to wake the voice up and prepare for the day and can be easily included in any morning routine, no matter how busy.  Look out for my next article that will cover how you can warm-up and stretch the body to support your new voice!

Sarah Schubert is a professional Voice coach and Leadership Development consultant. Passionate about good communication and with over 20yrs international experience in the Corporate and Performing Arts arena, she blends voice development with business and personal productivity in a unique way. Visit her website New Voice Communications for more information on the services offered.

To Grammar or Not to Grammar?

I was posed an interesting question the other day by one of my clients: “What is grammar and do you think you know enough to teach it and should you teach it?”

Being particular about correct written and spoken communication and taking pride in knowing my conditionals from conjunctions, my immediate reaction is to say “Yes, of course I know enough and yes, we should focus on grammar!!!” but as I thought about it, I realised a few things.

Let’s think about what grammar actually is: Grammar brings structure to a language; it is the set of rules present in every language that dictate how words should be used, the forms they should take and the order they should be placed in.

These rules or ‘system’ include syntax (how words combine into phrases), morphology (the formation of words), phonology (study of sounds in isolation), and semantics (the science of meaning in language forms).   Hence it forms the base of all language; with each language having it’s own system and grammatical structure.  In some languages it can be very complex and English is one example and it is essential to understand the rules to be able to communicate effectively.

Grammar determines how sentences are structured, for example, that auxiliary verbs (e.g. will) come before main verbs (e.g. arrive) in affirmative sentences. 

Grammar also tells us which word form should be used and when.  This knowledge of how words change and the different forms they have is called ‘morphology’ and literally means ‘the study of change.’  Words change their form to express different meanings whether it’s to denote how many of something there are, whether something happened in the past or present, and who something happened to.  Understanding morphology is essential to having a full grasp of a language – for example knowing the different forms of ‘drink’ (drank, drunk); knowing the comparative and superlative forms of ‘quick’ (quicker and quickest), and knowing that this can also be in an irregular form e.g. for ‘good’ it is ‘better’, and ‘best’.

There are many examples of grammatical choices we make when using English and native speakers will tend to just know these rules with no true understanding of why a sentence is structured in a certain way.

Grammar brings depth and variety of meaning to what otherwise would just be a jumble of words.

So, Grammar definitely has a place.  Now to the question of whether English language teachers should have a firm foundation of grammar and should we teach it?

The short answer to this question is “yes”.   A language teacher needs to understand the grammatical structure of the language they are teaching.  Grammar forms the base of a language, it determines sentence structure, and

the correct forms of words to use.  Without at least some knowledge of this it will be very hard for the teacher to explain the complexities of any language.

When teaching something new to someone it is important to have a ‘system’ for reference to help explain the irregularities and make sense of the sometime irrational word forms and sentence structure.  The “whys”? then at least have some explanation for the student.  They may not make immediate sense but it takes the argument away of whether it is right or wrong.  If the teacher does not have this depth of knowledge in a language the student will soon become frustrated if their questions are not answered and they may start to question how much the teacher actually knows!  Naturally, as a student becomes more proficient with a language so their thirst for knowledge increases and the teacher must be one step ahead, or at least keep up.

Grammar offers that system or set of rules that can help the teacher “teach” the language in a comprehensive way and for the learner to grasp the basics.  This understanding of the fundamentals of how a language is structured provides a strong foundation to build on.  If the basics are not there from the start confusion, embarrassment, re-work will all likely follow for the learner.  Native speakers of any language are taught the grammatical structures or syntax of their language as children and to enable typical ESL students to have that same grasp of the language the teachers need to be equipped with a strong understanding of the grammatical system.

Whatever any teacher teaches to their students, it has to be appropriate and in line with the student’s learning objectives.  This is extremely relevant for ESL students who are typically learning English for a specific purpose, whether it’s to study in Australia, converse socially with English speaking friends, or go on to teach English themselves.  The style of teaching will differ and even the type of pronunciation taught will change.  It is not about the preferences of the teacher that determines this but the needs of the student.  So it may well happen that a language teacher does not focus on the grammatical structure of sentences and phrases but instead focuses on the types of colloquial phrases that would be appropriate and the “schwas” that are created when a vowel is shortened and are a natural part of speaking English with proficiency.  In essence the teacher focuses on breaking the language down and teaching the ’lazy’ or informal uses of words and phrases.  This would be relevant for the ESL students wanting to learn English to converse socially with their English-speaking friends, however I would argue that it wouldn’t be appropriate for the ESL student learning English to then go on and teach English himself.

Grammar is a complex subject to learn and with so many native speakers not having a true grammatical understanding of their own language it begs the question why it is important for ESL students to learn about it and for language teachers to know about it.   However it is a natural and very necessary part of any language and a student will limit his proficiency with the language he is learning, if he is not taught the basics.

So, having deliberated the question, my answer is I feel it is important for the language teacher to have a firm foundation of grammar in their target language to offer a comprehensive learning experience.  Whether they actually utilise it and teach the grammatical structure will depend on the needs of the student.