How to Use This Course

The ClearTalk Method

• The ClearTalk Method consists of strategies, tactics, pronunciation instruction, exercises, advice for manner of direct practice/home practice, and daily life practice.
  • The ClearTalk Method was born with Dr. Antonia Lawrence Johnson’s dissertation research, completed in 2000. Action research with over 2000 enrollments has been continuous since then for persons from 64 countries and 65 first languages.
  • We are standing on the shoulders of speech, hearing, linguistic, kinesiology, and education researchers and practitioners.
• Dr. Antonia Lawrence Johnson deliberately speaks in a careful, easy to see and hear manner.
  • That’s so you have enough time to completely process all you see and hear
  • This allows you to:
    • Get the position of your tongue, lips, teeth, and jaw exactly right
    • Get the speed of your muscles exactly right
    • Get the stiffness or tenseness of your muscles exactly right

Goals of this course

• You will learn WHAT to change of your accented English so that it becomes easy to understand American English.
• You will find out HOW to learn with tips and advice so that your learning is efficient and long lasting.

Tools

• You get a series of specially sequenced and ordered modules designed for efficient and long lasting learning.  You get videos, audios, written lessons and a study guide for quick reference.
• We start with an overview of what you will learn, then direct practice and written lessons and information to help you succeed in mastering clear American English as quickly as possible.
• The videos and materials are listed in a box on the left-hand side of the screen. Click on each link to access the content for that week.

Roadmap

Sequence of Pronunciation Learning

• Thus this course alternates between sets of consonants and vowels so you are learning in a systematic, easy to remember manner.
• We start with quick consonants, then vowels.
• Next we do slow consonants, then back to vowels

The learning is in the Doing

• The modules and lessons give you  direct practice on material sequenced in an order proven to make your learning both efficient and long lasting.

You get:

• ClearTalk tactics and strategies to produce accurate, easy to understand English
• Exercises to strengthen the muscles you need for clear English
• Instruction on exactly what to do with your tongue, lips, teeth, jaw and vocal folds to get accurate English pronunciation
• Rules of pronunciation so you can accurately pronounce all words and especially unfamiliar words
• Secrets to the key techniques for the manner of speaking clear, easy to understand English
• Tips on how to do your direct practice/home practice for efficient and long lasting learning

Neuroscientists tell us it takes:

• One thousand times of practice to make a neural trace in your brain
• Ten thousand times of practice to make that pattern a habit

How to Get the MOST Out of the Lessons:

• Do all videos in the order given on one day or multiple days. Each video is about 3-4 minutes long.
• Follow-up on other days with videos, audios and written lessons most useful to you. People who have done the videos more than once have done the best.
• Optimal direct practice/home practice is 15 to 30 minutes a day, 5 days a week. People who practice more gain more.
• It takes 70 days of practice every day to change a habit. You will be learning lots of sets of patterns and habits.
• Neuroscientists say it takes 1000 times of doing a pattern to make a mental trace and 10,000 times to make it a habit.  Get the 1000 and 10,000 times by:
  • Doing direct practice/home practice
  • And take every opportunity to deliberately practice clear talk strategies and pronunciation in daily life
• Aim for perfect practice and monitor Dr. Antonia Lawrence Johnson (do what she does)
  • Dr. Antonia Lawrence Johnson deliberately speaks in a careful, easy to see and hear manner.
    • That’s so you have enough time to completely process all you see and hear
    • This allows you to:
      • Get the position of your tongue, lips, teeth, and jaw exactly right
      • Get the speed of your muscles exactly right
      • Get the stiffness or tenseness of your muscles exactly right
• In order for you to do perfect practice of clear American English, your muscles of tongue, lips, teeth and jaw often need to go to different positions. When people train new muscle positions, those muscles take extra time to get to the correct positions. Practice and habit over time will allow for speed up of those muscle patterns.
• Every lesson and set of modules has new training advice:  What to train for and how to train.

We guide and teach you on your journey of mastery and habit of clear, intelligible, easy to understand English.

There is great joy in mastery and communication. May our journey together be joyful!