This month the spotlight is on articulation. Or, how to speak more clearly.

Why should you bother with articulation or even be thinking about it? Articulation happens when we change, or shape, the basic sounds we make into sounds that can be understood. Our articulators are our tongue, lips, teeth and soft palate.

A baby can make all sorts of sounds like ‘ooo’ ‘ahhhh’ and ‘eeee’ and we can make very accurate guesses about what the baby is ‘saying’ to us. But it’s still a guess. When we grow older and develop our speech skills, we use our articulators, including our tongue and lips to shape sounds into intelligible speech. This makes us speak more clearly.

For example, the sound ‘ahhhh’ with the addition of the tongue being held on the gum ridge (just behind our top teeth), then released, becomes ‘dah, dah, dah’ or ‘lah lah, lah’. Placing the tongue gently between the front teeth changes the sound ‘er’ to ‘the’.

The more accurately you use your articulators, the clearer your speech becomes.
Here are some top tips to help you strengthen your tongue and lips to help you speak more clearly:

The Tongue

Here are some exercises to help you to strengthen and use your tongue more effectively when you speak and help you to speak more clearly.

The tongue is a large, flexible muscle, rooted at the base of the mouth and used to shape many sounds. You will benefit from using a mirror in the following exercises:

1. Drop your jaw away from your face so your mouth is open and let your tongue sit on your lower lip, completely relaxed. Flex the tongue so it becomes round like a sausage and relax to return to its flat state. At first this may be a challenge, but persevere and the muscle will awaken and respond well.
2. With the jaw still relaxed and dropped away from your face, curl the tip of your tongue to precisely touch the centre of the top lip, then touch the tip of the tongue to the centre of the bottom lip. Maintain the distance between the two lips to encourage the tongue to travel and grow in strength and accuracy. Relax your shoulders, keep your head free and centred between your shoulders.
3. Repeat the above exercise, and then move the tip of the tongue to the corner of the right side of the mouth, then to the left, so the tip of the tongue is bending up, down, right, left. Ensure you are very precise with the point of contact. It can help to touch the tip of your tongue with your finger then touch the centre top lip to match the two points of contact then allowing them to locate.
4. Then move the tongue to make contact at that exact point before moving to the next point and so on. Take your time—this is a new exercise and takes time to master.
5. Maintaining the position of the jaw dropped away from the face, put the tip of your tongue in front of your bottom teeth and inside your bottom lip. Move the tip of your tongue around the teeth in a clockwise direction, noticing the texture and shape of the teeth, then move up to the top teeth, all around, down to the bottom teeth and finishing back at the start point. Repeat in the other direction.
6. Repeat the exercise with the tip of the tongue on the lips themselves, clockwise then anticlockwise.
   Stick your tongue out as far as you can in a straight line and pull back in until it is bunched at the back of the mouth. Keep the jaw dropped away from your face during this exercise.
7. Leave the tip of the tongue resting behind your bottom teeth, low in the mouth. Allow the wide middle of the tongue to come forward (rather like a frog action!) and bring back into the mouth again.

Repeat each of these exercises 5–10 times and take your time. Your body will find it new and it is your role to introduce the new demands slowly and build up strength and flexibility over a period of time. Relax your tongue by making a flappy ‘blblbl’ sound as your flick your tongue out and over your lips.

The Lips

Here are some exercises to strengthen and create more flexibility with your lips to help you speak more clearly.

1. Your lips work in conjunction with your teeth and tongue to shape your words clearly. Your lips move in all directions, up and down, sideways, in and out, assisted by many facial muscles which grow stronger with exercise. Regularly warming up and strengthening these articulators is essential to speaking more clearly.
2. Give a wide, expansive smile that includes a sparkle in your eyes. Relax, and then bring the lips together in an exaggerated French-style pout. Pull the lips together so they can hardly be seen, then tuck the lips around the teeth, as though you have no teeth to show. Repeat several times in different combinations.
3. On an out-breath blow the ‘Brrrr’ sound out through your lips, ‘horse lips’ as it is sometimes called! It can also sound like an old car puttering along the country lanes. The lips are completely relaxed and your voice just helps to blow the sound through your lips. This relaxes the lips, the sound of your voice keeps the sound at the front of the mouth while gently continuing to warm up your vocal folds in your larynx.
4. Give your face a gentle massage around your mouth area, using a light circular touch with your fingertips.
5. Next, read a challenging political speech aloud, over-articulating each word, exaggerating all articulator actions. Pause at punctuation and take a full breath with each new sentence.

These warm up exercises will help you to develop your speech muscles and shape your speech more accurately. The more you practise, the easier it becomes and the clearer your speech.

To book a one-to-one coaching session, or for more information on speaking more clearly, get in touch.