Lack of volume

2One of the most common vocal failings of learners in the language classroom is that of not speaking loudly enough (the converse condition is seldom encountered). Exhortations by the teacher to ‘speak louder’ rarely achieve the desired objective. Indeed, teachers may sometimes tire of asking learners to speak louder. There exists in the world today what we can call the volume paradox. There is so much loud noise all around us, in the form of motor engines, blaring music from car music systems, emergency alarms, mobile phone ringtones, and late-night shouting; the list could go on and on. Yet, when called upon to speak in public, when not microphone-assisted, the human voice has become quieter. It is as if, faced with all the noise around it, the normal speaking voice has retreated into the Inner Zone and given up the fight to be heard. Furthermore, when told that they are speaking too quietly, many speakers express their surprise at such a reproach. Perhaps it is because they are hearing the sound of their own voice without background competition that many speakers have a perception that they are speaking more loudly than, in fact, they are. Or it could be that the voice level used so often on mobile telephones is transferred to the public speaking environment.

3The situation just cited can be regarded as a psychological one. Another psychological reason for a quiet voice can be found among learners who do not think that it is appropriate to speak loudly in public. An interesting case exhibiting this particular phenomenon was encountered by Chris with a student, with whom the normal exercises to improve vocal volume were not having much success. In a moment of mild exasperation, Chris asked the student if everyone in his family spoke with such a quiet voice. The student was quick to reply in the affirmative. Further, gentle probing revealed that the student had grown up in a family where voices were never raised and where there was an almost monastic calm. The notion of speaking loudly was alien to this student.

4Generally speaking, breathing problems are the easiest to identify, mainly because they reveal themselves not only through the voice but also through posture and general awkwardness in the body. That awkwardness may simply be a perceived lack of energy or alertness in the body. Once a breathing problem is identified, simple breathing exercises as detailed in Part 2 should be undertaken. However, it is important for the teacher to be observant in these exercises and to verify that the student is actually capable of carrying them out. The student should be asked whether they experience any discomfort in exercises involving controlled breathing, as there may be a physiological problem which prevents the speaker from taking in as much air as needed for comfortable articulation.

5Poor control of breathing can manifest itself in different ways. A few years ago, a female student was referred to Chris for a very staccato style of speech. In fact, she had a most unpleasant voice, producing in the listener the same sensation as that experienced when hearing fingernails being scraped down a blackboard. It was also similar to the voice that can be heard used by teachers in school to control pupils, particularly at the end of a difficult day. It is the voice of the continuous rasping shout, caused by the forcing of the breath through the vocal folds when there is little air to support the voice. In the case of this student, all the work was being done by the vocal folds, and the strain of it was being communicated to the resonators in the pharynx, mouth and nasal cavity, with resultant increased muscle tension.

6In his very first session with the student, it did not take long for Chris to notice that her breathing was very shallow. There appeared to be no real intake of air, and her whole body seemed tense and uncomfortable. When this was brought to her attention, she said that she was very aware that she had a problem with her breathing. A few years earlier, she had been forced to give up the trumpet, which she had started learning, as her music teacher had told her that she did not have enough air to comfortably play the instrument. It was very strange that, of all the musical instruments available, she had chosen one of the most difficult in terms of its demand on respiration! Several sessions of voice work with her helped to improve her breathing to a certain degree, but finally, Chris had to tell her that she should have a full medical check-up to see whether there was a physical reason for her breathing problems. Some problems encountered in the language classroom cannot be solved by either the language teacher or the voice coach!

Staccato delivery

7We are not referring here to staccato speech, which consists of syllabically-fragmented utterances, and which often has a psychological or neurological cause and may severely interfere with oral communication. ‘Staccato delivery’ invokes the speech of someone whose speaking pattern is disrupted by excessive pausing between and within words. The most likely reason for this is poor breathing control. This may be caused by nervousness, and so exercises to build up confidence in speaking play an important role. These can begin with posture (Part 2, Section 1:2) and proceed to breathing exercises (Part 2, Section 3) and may also include a backspeak exercise (Part 2, Section 5:11).

Articulation difficulties

8In one university theatre class run by Chris, he detected that a student from one of the Baltic states had difficulty with the pronunciation of the /w/ sound; it always came out in Germanic form as a /v/ sound. Dealing with such a problem requires working on one of the back vowel sounds, consciously advancing this sound in the mouth whilst rounding the lips at the same time. It requires the jaw to be able to open freely. The student discovered that she, in fact, had restricted jaw mobility and had never been conscious of this fact. She admitted that back home in Lithuania, people had often complained that she did not articulate well and that they sometimes had difficulty understanding her speaking in Lithuanian. Before that, nobody had ever tried to identify the reasons for her poor articulation. Thus it was whilst studying in France, and following a theatre course in English, that she discovered that she had a jaw problem that should be treated medically!

9It was claimed in a New York Times article (Brody, 2009) that nearly three-quarters of the American population suffer at one time or another from a botheration caused by the jaw. Problems affecting the temporomandibular joints, which connect the jawbone to the skull, are certainly common, and their significance in the language classroom is that they may be the cause of articulation problems. If a learner is having a problem with articulation, the first thing to look at is to see if there is freedom in the jaw region.

10Activities found in Part 2 can be used to work on articulation problems, including exercising the mask of the face, the lips and the tongue. In the case of the latter, there are two physical conditions which can have a noticeable effect on overall articulation. The first, macroglossia, is a rare condition in which the tongue is too large for the buccal cavity, producing a “chumbling effect” similar to the sound produced when someone is speaking with a mouth full of food. The second physical condition is ankyloglossia, where a short frenulum, attaching the tongue to the base of the mouth, restricts freedom of tongue movement.

11A further physiological condition is linked to the soft palate, the soft muscular part of the roof of the mouth, back behind the hard palate. In speech, if the soft palate is lazy and is not completely raised, air passes through the nose, giving a nasal sound to the voice. A soft palate which is not exercised enough can give rise to a dull, monotonous voice and one which does not respond to pitch variations. Exercises for the soft palate can be found along with other exercises for the articulators in Part 2.