Acting
classes and courses
Correct English pronunciation, diction, reading skills and acting
Introduction
Having the ability to act in English as well as in your native language
may not yet be essential, but it is certainly an extremely useful additional
string to your bow in your search for work, whether at home or abroad.
Course
levels
Upper intermediate/advanced level
Courses can be designed specifically designed for actors or non-actors
who already have at least a good upper-intermediate or preferably advanced
level in English. In other words it is intended for students who already
speak fluently, who understand normal speed speech and who can read and
more or less understand film scripts and plays, with the exception of
the odd word here and there.
Lower level
Courses for lower level students can also be given using simplified texts
to learn English through drama.
Course
numbers
It is intended that the number of course attendees is kept low in order
to give specific attention to each student´s specific pronunciation
problems and in order to give them sufficient “airtime” when
practising new found pronunciation skills or when reading scripts etc.
This may make course fees relatively high, but it is my firm belief that
I get results and that course attendance will be of long term benefit.
Course
Content
Pronunciation and diction
Course attendees will be given a comprehensive guide to correct English
pronunciation and phonetics using my own copyright method. We will try
to cover all sounds but will concentrate specifically on the problems
encountered by Spanish speakers (or South American Spanish speakers if
there are any in the group). Additional notes will be provided concerning
the particular problems. I mean words like sit/ seat/ shit/ sheet, measure,
usual, vowel/bowel, project, happy, live/life, mad/mat, plurals, ED endings
etc. Quite simply if you don´t know how to pronounce words such
as these, native speakers will not understand you.
Course attendees will be taught to listen actively, to analyse English
speech, to identify sounds and to spot both their own and their fellow
actors´/students' mistakes.
Once correct sounds have been learned they will then be integrated into
normal fluid speech and each actor will be encouraged to develop their
own voice, speaking style and accent.
All of each student´s mistakes will be noted by me and the incorrect
and correct pronunciation will be pointed out to them phonetically. Usually
each student has their own recurring mistakes and their own particular
problems. These will be identified and addressed. Specific self- correction
pronunciation exercises will be given as required, to help them practise
both in class and at home.
Any students who already have US or other regional features to their accent
will be encouraged to keep them. Regional differences can be taught, but
not really within the time restrictions of this course.
Contractions,
short forms and pronunciation
Contractions are used a lot in normal everyday English speech.
Contractions and short forms, both in correct English, casual speech and
widespread regional use will be outlined so that students can both hear
and understand native speakers using contractions and so they can use
them themselves, thus sounding more natural and less like an English as
a foreign language course.
Students will also be taught where they should run words together, drop
initial sounds etc. in order to give them more fluid speech.
Application
Course attendees will then put new-found pronunciation skills into practice
using theatrical texts to be provided to course attendees or students´own
texts if they have a text they are interested in or are working on themselves.
Reading
and acting in English
The following skills in English:
Sight reading
Intonation
Use of stress
Reading between the lines and subtext
Dealing with mistakes and nerves when acting in a foreign language
Acting styles
Adapting your voice to the character
Brief notes will be provided, as required in relation to each of the above.
These will be discussed before putting everything into practice using
theatrical texts to be provided to course attendees or students´
own texts.
Note
It is not intended that this course teach rudimentary acting skills from
scratch.
I also don´t intend or wish to insult anyone by trying to teach
them things they already know. It is simply that with the added difficulty
of having to act in a foreign language and pronunciation uncertainty,
skills course attendees know quite well in their own language, such as
use of stress, emphasis and fluidity may well be go out the window.
Course
direction
The courses are necessarily fairly technical in nature. However I will
try to offset this by putting into practice skills learned.
I feel that a balance must be reached, otherwise over-concentration on
technical aspects will reach a saturation point at which nothing else
will go in and students will start to turn off. Pronunciation exercises
in a foreign language after all can be a bit like a visit to the dentist.
Follow up
It is intended, and indeed strongly recommended that course attendees
follow up an initial course, not only with regular visits to the cinema
in VO, but also to attend a refresher/ more in depth class in the non-too-distant-future
in order to maximise the benefit and to capitalise on their investment
of time, money and effort.
If course attendees come and then simply leave their new-found
English pronunciation and acting skills to gather dust they will not obtain
as much long term benefit from the course as they could otherwise.
What would be preferable, of course, would be to timetable a regular course
of classes, fully to rectify bad pronunciation habits that have been developed
over perhaps decades of speaking English incorrectly and to turn attendees
into fully bilingual actors.
