hey what's up Stefanie the English coach here from englishfulltime.com in this video I'm going
to tell you why I do not teach tongue twisters to my students and I don't recommend them for
pronunciation practice now if you are new here welcome as I said my name is Stefanie and I make
videos content and courses for intermediate and advanced English language learners okay so first
of all I know a lot of people love tongue twisters and a lot of teachers use them in their classes in
fact I used to be one of these teachers way back in the day when I taught private and
group classes online I had a class where I taught tongue twisters and I thought it was so much fun
and anyways today I wouldn't use this methodology with my students and so I'm going to break that
down and explain why I know people say that tongue twisters are really fun they're a good challenge
and even actors and public speakers use them so I'm gonna get into all of this and at the end
I'm even gonna show you some material that I use with my students and I'm going to tell you about
what I do instead to teach pronunciation what I believe is a better way to learn pronunciation
okay so the first reason I don't teach tongue twisters to my students and I don't recommend
them for pronunciation practice is because basic pronunciation is hard enough mastering the
individual sounds in English learning how to say certain words like take a word with five syllables
and try to say it right it's not that easy and so if you're struggling with the basics still then it
doesn't make sense to go over the top and practice and work on something like tongue twisters because
this brings me to my next point tongue twisters are difficult even for native speakers so imagine
we're in a classroom and I'm in the front and I say hey everybody welcome to class today we're
going to work on improving your pronunciation and we're going to practice saying things that
are even difficult for me to say it's like wait how does that help you it doesn't because if it's
difficult for me to say it means it's going to be really incredibly difficult for an English learner
to say and there are other things that you can work on that will be a much better use of your
time it'll be much more efficient and much more productive for you also when you are working on
tongue twisters they make your mouth very tense and they make your body tense and that is the
opposite of what you want when you are working on your pronunciation you want to be relaxed
from head to toe tongue twisters are not natural they just aren't and you can tell because the way
they tie up your tongue when you're speaking but basically the words are placed in such an
unnatural way it's like it makes you mess up it makes me mess up and I don't like working with
any kind of material in my courses or my programs that is not natural normal everyday type English
like if you can't use it for the real world I see no point in studying it or practicing
it there's got to be some way that it's useful in the real world and that way when whatever
you're doing in the classroom will also benefit you outside the classroom tongue twisters are
very isolated it's like if you want to do it for fun I think great go ahead but when it comes to
actually working on your pronunciation there are much better methods and I'll talk about those at
the end so next tongue twisters because they're so difficult they can easily trigger feelings of
frustration overwhelm and defeat in students and that is the opposite of what I as a teacher want
to foster in my students students will have those feelings anyways with things that are much easier
so might as well help them overcome those things that are much easier so they can quickly get
to the confidence quickly get to the feelings of success and feel like they have achieved something
next yes actors and public speakers use tongue twisters but they do not use them in the way that
language learners have been using tongue twisters or trying to use tongue twisters when you are a
an actor or a public speaker you're using the tongue twister to warm up your voice okay you
not to practice pronunciation to simply warm up your voice and to warm up your tongue warm up
your lips and you're practicing your diction and your enunciation and you're making sure that your
words are very clear and you're articulating words very very clearly and precisely that you already
know how to say perfectly you can say these words absolutely perfectly okay every single
time they're not difficult for you but they're put in word orders that are more difficult so that you
can focus on your diction so you can focus on your enunciation so you can focus on your articulation
right that's the purpose of tongue twisters as it relates to public speaking and actors which
is something that is totally different when you are are learning a language you're not working on
your enunciation and your diction when you're still working on your pronunciation it's like
you got to work on your pronunciation first then you can strengthen your articulation then you can
work on your diction and your enunciation and all that other stuff but first you got to get
the pronunciation down so that point of like hey even actors and public speakers use it it's like
yes but they use it for this reason not for that reason so finally I will admit tongue twisters can
be very fun very fun if you enjoy them but for me it's more like it helps give you a good laugh it
helps you lighten up loosen up not take yourself so seriously it's almost like you're supposed to
fail you're supposed to fail and laugh at it so you can just loosen up and move on to something
else but yes you can work on it work on it work on it get good etc but when it comes to pronunciation
I would say tongue twisters are not what you need they can be fun they can be funny they perhaps can
be helpful but it's not what you need and there are better easier much more productive ways to
work on your pronunciation and so I'm going to talk to you about those now and this is what I do
with my students so when I teach pronunciation for me I am building skills in my students the first
thing we have to do is work on the sounds the individual sounds because those are the building
blocks of the language you have to learn the sounds masterthe sounds once you have the sounds
down you move to small words and you practice the sounds in small words that are word pairs that are
very similar like man men cap cup cop you have to be able to say all of these words that are very
similar differently now that is a challenge that is a tongue twister for many students and yet it's
simple basic English it's not high level anything that's my point when I say you don't have to make
it harder than it already is because basic English already is hard for most students so you go from
sounds to short words to longer words why longer words because then you need to practice the word
stress reducing certain syllables inside the word stressing other syllables getting the stress in
the correct place working on the rhythm inside of the words so you go from sounds to small words
to big words and then to phrases because you have to practice connecting your speech reducing words
in between words working on the rhythm and then adding in that intonation so you can work on the
pitch as well and how you communicate with your pitch and then after you have all those pieces
in place you are ready to really study content in depth and to do monologues to shadow entire
paragraphs or to shadow dialogues and do all these things you will have everything in place
because you will have built up to it so that is what makes the most sense to me that is what I do
with my students knowing everything that I know now about studying languages teaching languages
I find this to be the most effective and the most productive thing to do with students it's like you
start small and you build and make it bigger and harder and more of a challenge but the crazy thing
is even starting small you're already starting with the challenge because some students just
making the distinction between the ɪ and the i sound is a challenge or the æ and the ɛ sound
that's a challenge or the ʊ and the ʌ sound that's a challenge right so start small then build on top
of every skill every new skill and soon you will be able to speak clearly you will have control of
your mouth control of the sounds that come out of it control of your words you will be able to speak
with natural English rhythm etc all without ever needing to practice or study a tongue twister okay
so with all of that said the closest I've ever come to creating anything tongue twister like with
my students is through original short stories that I make for them and I'm actually going to show you
part of one today so for my students that struggle with the th sound I wrote a story for them
four paragraphs I'm going to share one paragraph with you but everything about the story is natural
the way that it's written the phrases I use the words that I use the structure the word order
it's all 100% natural English you'll be able to practice your rhythm your intonation the sounds
etc but in a natural way not in an unnatural way so the story is called day at the theater
I will show you the first paragraph and inside this little paragraph I used the th sound 40
times in the words and I did this on purpose because this material here for my students is
to help them drill the th sound but drill it in a natural way so I'll read it and I want you to
know that this is not a tongue twister for native speakers I had other native English speakers read
this and they were able to fly through it you'll see how I read it they were able to read through
it just fine because it's not a tongue twister it just has sort of an abnormal amount of the th
sound in it but there's nothing that should mess up your tongue beyond the th sound if you're
struggling with it okay so day at the theater that day Ethan thought the weather would be anything
but life-threatening the weatherman said it's just gonna be a thunderstorm he thought that's nothing
so rather than be bothered by the thick clouds gathering beneath the sun he jumped in his 1973
Thunderbird and enthusiastically drove to the theater for their bi-monthly throwback Thursday
movie marathon this time they were showing The Godfather Gone With the Wind and some pathetic
thriller about a psychopath okay so did you see how easily I read through that I didn't stumble
over anything if you struggle with a sound in English doing something like this would
be really effective for you working with natural sentences naturally structured paragraphs stories
e tc or phrases if you don't even have to do this much you can just choose a phrase like
thought the weather thought the weather thought the weather yeah I thought the weather would be
better today he thought the weather would be colder he thought the weather would be
whatever right that's a phrase that you could practice here and then turn around and use in
weather in weather in real life another one is that's nothing that's nothing or rather than be
bothered rather than be bothered rather than be bothered right you have the th there three times
go to the theater for their bi-monthly go to the theater for their bi-monthly throwback Thursday
throwback Thursday movie marathon The Godfather Gone With the Wind right pathetic thriller so you
can take out individual phrases that are all totally natural and you can use this to drill
sounds to work on sounds this is what I mean it's like the language itself is enough of a tongue
twister for language learners we don't have to go out of our way to make it more difficult than
it has to be I think that is my main point with all of this okay so that's it let me know what
you think I would love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments in my next video I'm actually
going to be doing tongue twisters because I just thought hey it would be super fun to do them to
show you how difficult they are and we can laugh together you can try them with me and I'm not
gonna be perfect at them it's not gonna be like oh I'm gonna teach you pronunciation with these
tongue twisters no we're just gonna do it for fun so that's what we will do in the next video
so if you are not subscribed to the channel please subscribe turn on the notifications
so you don't miss any classes with me and I can't wait to see you in the next video bye