1. The Importance of Voice Introduction to the Art of Speaking 1

2. Benefits of diction exercises The specific benefits of diction/articulation exercises are: strengthening and stretching the muscles involved in speech bringing to your attention to speech patterns you have that may be less than perfect 2

3. Tips for Tongue Twister Diction Exercises: Always start slowly and carefully. Make sure the beginning and end of each word is crisp and avoid running the words together. Repeat the phrase, getting faster and faster while maintaining clarity. If you trip over words, stop and start again. 3

4. Loosening the Tongue: Mrs. Tongue lives in her house, the mouth. Every morning she mops it from ceiling to floor. First she sweeps her mop from right to left. Run your tongue in a full circle around your cheek walls across the front of your top and bottom teeth. Repeat 3 times. 4

5. Loosening the Tongue: Next she sweeps her mop from left to right. Reverse the direction of the circle. Repeat 3 times. 5

6. Loosening the Tongue: Now she dusts the furniture. Sweep your tongue as rapidly as you can from side to side across the upper teeth. Repeat at least 10 times. 6

7. Loosening the Tongue: Lastly she sweeps away the cobwebs from around the front door. Stick the tongue out as far as you can and sweep it from right to left around the outside of your lips. Repeat 3 times, then reverse the direction and repeat 3 times. 7

8. Try these Tongue Twisters: Literally literary. Jack the jailbird jacked a jeep. My cutlery cuts keenly and cleanly. The shrewd shrew sold Sarah seven silver fish slices. Sister Susie sat on the sea shore sewing shirts for sailors. Four furious friends fought for the phone. Five flippant Freshmen fly from France for Fashions. 8

9. Try these Tongue Twisters: Lucy lingered, looking longingly for her lost lap- dog. Reading and Writing are richly rewarding. Ten tame tadpoles tucked tightly in a thin tall tin. Two toads, totally tired, trying to trot to Tewkesbury. Red leather, yellow leather, red lorry, yellow lorry You know New York, You need New York, You know you need unique New York. 9

10. Try these Tongue Twisters: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. If Peter picked a peck of pickled peppers, Where’s the peck of pickled peppers that Peter Piper picked? 10

11. Try these Tongue Twisters: Betty bought a bit of butter, but she found the butter bitter, so Betty bought a bit of better butter to make the bitter butter better. 11

12. Try these Tongue Twisters: Moses supposes his toses are roses, but Moses supposes erroneously, for nobody’s toeses are posies of roses as Moses supposes his toses to be. 12

13. Try these Tongue Twisters: I am the very model of a modern Major-General; I’ve information vegetable, animal, and mineral; I know the Kings of England, and I quote the fights historical, from Marathan to Waterloo, in order categorical; I’m very well acquainted too with matters mathematical, I understand equations, both simple and quadratical, about binomial theorem I’m teeming with a lot o’ news, with many cheerful facts about the square of the hypotenuse. I’m very good at integral and differential calculus, I know the scientific names of being animalculous, In short, in matters vegetable, animal, and mineral, I am the very model of a modern Major-General. 13

14. Pitch: The high and low range of your voice. 14

15. Tone: Emotional content carried by our voices. 15

16. Volume: How loudly or quietly you speak 16

17. Rate: Speaking pace 17