Karaoke speaking
Student
instruction
This technique, while
highly effective in learning a target accent, seems difficult for many students
to maintain at home as a daily practice. Maybe we feel silly doing it,
especially when someone else is around.
It consists of simply
speaking along, over or as an immediate echo to a model. This model can be
anything: a film, talk show, dialogues from your textbook.
It is like singing along to
some music. You quickly develop an ear for being out of tune, and with time you
learn how to auto-correct.
I heard that some theater
actors practice the same method. For learning and memorizing a new role, they
speak to recorded tapes.
·
Do not let
yourself be discouraged at the beginning. This is a quite difficult technique.
Do not aspire to perfect imitation right from the start. Just start imitating
sounds, approximately. Today 1%, tomorrow 1.5%, and so on …
·
Do not try
to understand everything the model is saying. The scope of this exercise is
more to develop an intuition for language melody and the sounds of your target
language.
·
Always
look for different material and models, so you do not become fixated with a
certain voice.
·
Vary
between easy and challenging models.
·
Imagine
yourself surfing. At the beginning, you will fall repeatedly, but with time,
you will remain for ever longer periods on (or under) the wave.
·
If you
lose track, just continue with the next sentence. Do not punish yourself. Just
jump on and try again.
·
Many
players (and YouTube) allow you to
reduce (or increase) speed. If you are learning a language with very complicated
sounds, start by reducing speed to 50%, or even more. Alternatively, if you are
already good at 100%, why not increase to 150% or more?
Advice for teachers
This is, almost without
deviation, my standard warmup technique for lessons at any level. For five
minutes straight.
For beginners, I typically
use news at reduced speed. You can use a player like VLC to vary reproduction
speed. Youtube offers the same functionality. At more advanced levels, I use
talk shows, documentaries or audio books. It depends much on your personal style
and your students’ tastes.
Learn a language by listening to popular music in
that language
Student instruction
Many languages are quite melodic and rhythmic. By
applying the Karaoke method mentioned above, while singing the lyrics to
popular music, you can build a sense of cadence and understand better the
patterns of pronunciation within a given language. Additionally, you can pick
up cultural notes about what is important in the country where the songs were
written and produced.
I have had a number of students who developed a love
for a new language, and then went on to speak in that language very well
because they were really fond of the music of a particular country or band.
Advice
·
Be careful to choose popular music
from a particular country (for example Fado in Portugal, or Chanson in France)
in order to avoid learning and repeating words that might be offensive within
that culture. Popular music is usually free of obscenities.
·
If you don't understand the lyrics of
a song, take some time on a number of free sites to look up the translations.
This might be another perfect opportunity to look up the translation in a third
language (French translations of Portuguese songs) so that you can study both
at the same time.
If you want
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If you want
to read more about quality management in language teaching, please check out
the other articles on this blog. If you have not read it yet, I recommend those
on student feedback
questionnaires and on how to standardize
your teaching.
Please out my online
courses on language learning.
Stay tuned!
Gerhard
About the
GO Method
The GO Method applies research
in psychology as well as principles of quality management to the language
teaching process. It conforms to key elements of the ISO 9001 standard, while
being more specific on teaching-related issues. Customers get access to easily
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About me
Psychologist and polyglot from
Hamburg /Germany (*1979). Married with children. MA in psychology from the
University of Hamburg. More than 15 years of experience as a university
lecturer in psychology as well as a consultant for UNICEF, Terre des Hommes,
IOM, the EU and private companies. Coordinator of the GO Method network, with
representatives in more than 90 countries worldwide.
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