Vowels are an unavoidable part of public speaking, and properly producing these vowels is an essential part of ensuring that your speech is clearly understood. Without proper articulation of the vowel sounds your words will eventually begin to run together, leaving your audience standing there scratching their heads and asking themselves (and each other) “What did he say?” Since having your listening audience ask what you’re talking about isn’t conducive to ensuring that your message is getting across, proper articulation is vital.

Producing Clear Vowels

When the mouth is kept wide open and none of the other vocal organs interrupt the air vibrations produced by the vocal cords a vowel is produced. Physiologically producing vowels is not a difficult process. Opening the mouth in a natural and relaxed manner and keeping the tongue and lips clear of the air flow just as you would if you were breathing produces the “a” sound, as in father.

If you were to take the position from which you made “a” sound and raised your tongue the sound will change, making the “a” sound found in fate. The closer the tongue gets to the roof of the mouth the more closely the sound you are producing will resemble the “e” sound found in feet. Somewhere in the middle the “I” sound should be clearly recognizable.

Starting again from the open position that you used to make the “ah” sound, leave your tongue flat against your bottom teeth and slowly close and round your lips. The vowel sound you are producing will go from “ah” to “o”, as in hope, then to the “oo” of troop as your lips come into a full purse. The “oa” of broad will be heard in the middle, as will a number of other vowel sounds.

Practicing Producing Vowels

As you can see, all of your vowels are formed by properly interacting the tongue and lips. It’s amazing how many sounds can be made simply by adjusting the flow of air allowed to leave the mouth!

The next step is learning how to properly (and consciously) apply these techniques in order to make vowel sounds while you are speaking. As with all aspects of public speaking properly producing vowels is a matter of time, effort and concentrated practice. There are two methods by which you can accurately evaluate the articulation of your vowels. The first is to ask a friend or colleague to listen to you speak and tell you whether or not you are clearly producing vowels.

The second option is to purchase a tape recorder and tape your own speech. This will allow you to hear yourself without the bias of your thoughts, and by listening to the recording you can accurately identify not only when you are not producing vowels correctly, you can identify when in the speech you begin doing it.

Most speakers start strong then lose their strong articulation as they begin to relax. Some start sloppy then correct themselves as they gain confidence. Whichever you happen to be, taping yourself speaking will go a long way toward identifying where your difficulties lie when producing your vowels and making your speech clear and articulate.

My Name Is Christopher Carlin And I Want To Give You Twenty Free Public Speaking Tips