Stage speech for children. Stage speech exercises for children

• September 8, 2018
• Psychology of communication
• Maria Ivanova

If a child dreams of becoming an actor or a professional presenter on radio and TV shows in the future, then he needs to train long and hard. To achieve this goal, there is a set of special exercises for stage speech. Methods will include various training sessions that will help improve your diction and gain new skills. Specialized classes contribute to the development of acting skills in both adults and children. This article will discuss: methods of stage speech for children, diction exercises.

Distinctive features of stage speech

Any person who plans to devote his life to acting must perform a set of special exercises. In the process of such classes, he will need to develop a loud voice, good diction, and learn how to correctly place emphasis in the text. This will help to express basic emotions and feelings, and correctly perform the task at hand. The technique of stage speech is not as easy as it might seem at first glance. An actor seeking to develop his talents must be able to convey the mood, show the inner world, character and other distinctive features of his character. If a person learns to do this correctly, he will soon become a real star in the cinema or theater.

Stage speech is considered a mandatory addition to acting. This technology developed over a long period of time and continued to be actively improved as it developed. Ancient Greek speakers used it in speech while moving, since this type of speech aroused the greatest interest among the audience. Already in those days, people understood that not only the meaning of the spoken words was important, but also the quality of their presentation, the intonation used and the method of reading.

Demosthenes, a famous philosopher and orator, had a very quiet voice by nature; all his speech was more like muttering, so many listeners simply could not make out his words. After the thinker realized what his problem was, he began to persistently train his diction. To do this, Demosthenes constantly went out to the edge of the cliff by the sea and made his speech, trying to shout over the noise of the raging waves. His contemporaries claim that he also often secluded himself in a cave and it was there that he rehearsed his monologues so that he had a chance to listen to himself.

Currently, there is no need to use such radical methods to improve your oratory. For this purpose, there are special stage speech exercises for preschool children. All of them are considered quite simple, but at the same time effective. Rehearsals to improve diction can be done at home or take classes with a teacher.

Highlight three main ideas

According to scientific research, people remember only three pieces of information well. Everything else is either remembered worse or not remembered at all. Therefore, before presenting at the board or before another important presentation, ask your child to highlight the three most important points of his presentation. This is taught to students in public speaking courses for children, but it is easy to learn to do on your own.

Understanding the key points will help the child focus on the main thing and properly structure his speech.

On a note!

There are three hallmarks of a good speech. All TED speakers adhere to these rules:

• Emotionality
  . The best speakers appeal to people's feelings and emotions.
• Novelty
  . Neuroscientists say that novelty is the fastest and most effective way to engage a listener.
• Unforgettable
  . It is important that after the speech, listeners remember the main idea.

Rapid improvement in speaking technique

If a parent wants to develop correct, clear and beautiful speech in his child, then he should enroll him in special lessons. Teachers will help you cope with this task.

Many people have had to attend a lecture or other class and listen to boring and inarticulate speech, which makes you want to sleep more than do anything. A professional speaker uses all the available capabilities of his speech apparatus, which helps to regularly maintain the attention of the audience and attract the interest of listeners. Stage speech lessons are well suited for artists, businessmen, politicians, and specialists in areas that require correct and competent communication with people. In any case, your child will need these kinds of skills in life, and the sooner training begins, the better his abilities will develop in the future.

In order for your child to learn how to properly control his voice and improve his diction in a short time, he will need to regularly perform simple stage speech exercises for children 3-6 years old. They won’t take up too much free time, but will still help you achieve a good result. The attention span of young children is more limited than that of adults, so experts have developed a special training system for them.

For correct and clear speech, it is important to carefully monitor your breathing. During stage speech lessons, the following tasks can be given: pronouncing tongue twisters, expressive reading with correct intonation, as well as special breathing exercises

Rhetoric for kids. Development of communication and speech skills in preschool children

Ekaterina Nikitina

Rhetoric for kids. Development of communication and speech skills in preschool children

“ Rhetoric for kids . Development of communication and speech skills in preschool children "

The existence of humanity is unthinkable without communicative activity . We constantly request, transmit and store information, that is, we are actively engaged in communicative activities . The sphere of communication is a necessary part of the social space in which a person exists. In communication, people reveal their personal qualities. During communication, a person acquires universal human experience, values, knowledge and ways of acting.

An important factor in the mental development of a preschooler is his communication with adults and peers.

Communication skills are not innate, but are formed through the development of the need to communicate with adults and peers. In modern pedagogical concepts, communication acts as a special communicative activity aimed at forming relationships. In preschool age, two spaces of interaction with society are traditionally distinguished. This is interaction with an adult and interaction with a peer. In preschool age , the boundaries of social space expand, primarily due to the fact that from the age of four in a child’s life, in addition to the importance of adults, the importance of a peer appears and increases, since it is from this age that a peer is an integral part of the formation of the child’s self-awareness.

The development of communication skills in preschool age goes through a number of stages. On the first of them (2-4 years)

a peer is a partner in emotional-practical interaction, which is based on imitation and emotional infection of the child.
At the second stage (4-6 years),
the need arises for situational business cooperation with a peer.
The content of communication becomes joint (mainly play)
activity.
At the third stage (at the age of 6-7 years),
communication with a peer acquires the features of a non-situational nature - the content
of communicative communication is distracted from the visual situation, stable selective preferences between children begin to develop.
] Children come to kindergarten with a different emotional outlook, heterogeneous aspirations and at the same time with different communication skills and capabilities.

The main tool of communication and communication is speech . Therefore, the formation of communication and speech skills is a priority in working with preschool .

To speak correctly and well means to establish and maintain good relationships with other people: in the family, at school, at work, in public life. All this helps to achieve success in a wide variety of areas.

Currently, it is becoming relevant to introduce rhetoric of preschool institutions .

RHETORIC is the science of the laws of preparing and delivering a public speech in order to have the desired impact on the audience.

The purpose of introducing rhetoric is obvious - introducing a preschooler to the elements and fundamentals of oratory has great educational, training and developmental significance . After all, preschool age is a sensitive period of speech development . to begin qualified teaching of rhetoric in preschool age . teaching is aimed at developing children’s communicative competencies , their ability to establish communication with the surrounding nature, people (adults and peers)

using linguistic
(phonetic, lexical, grammatical)
and non-verbal means
(facial expressions, gestures, postures, glances, objective actions)
.
Communicative competence is considered as a basic characteristic of the personality of a preschooler , as the most important prerequisite for well-being in social and intellectual development , in the development of specifically children's activities - group games, theatrical activities, children's artistic and creative activities.
Many preschoolers experience difficulties in organizing various types of speech activity and the culture of speech behavior, because the culture of speech behavior is a manifestation of a person’s general culture. Rhetoric classes are one of the most important means of developing empathy in children , i.e. the ability to recognize a person’s emotional state by facial expressions, gestures, intonation, the ability to put oneself in his place in various situations, and find adequate ways to help. Rhetoric classes contribute to the formation of correct speech, communication skills , as well as the enrichment of the internal spiritual and moral life of a preschooler , the development of perception , memory, fantasy, attention, imagination, and can also develop in the child the ability to express himself not only in words, but also in facial expressions and gestures. A special role in the system of rhetoric is played by those tasks and exercises that develop in children a critical perception of speech - a sense of the appropriateness of a statement (as linguists say, a sense of communicative expediency ). Special tasks cultivate attention to that side of speech that is associated with a kind, respectful attitude towards a person.

rhetoric classes allows you to develop experience in social behavior skills . During the lessons, the child’s vocabulary is activated, the sound culture of speech, its intonation and grammatical structure are improved. Children 's dialogical speech improves, timidity, self-doubt, and shyness are overcome.

Therefore, the general goals of rhetoric in kindergarten are:

- development of a unique human gift of speech, improvement of oral speech, its expressiveness and coherence;

-development of critical perception of speech, sense of communicative appropriateness (expediency)

;

- expansion of speech science concepts about what speech is needed for, what types of communication there are, what successful communication is, etc.

— development of a culture of speech behavior, cultivation of politeness;

— development of creative imagination, literary and communication abilities .

The content of the work on developing rhetorical skills can be divided into four BLOCKS:

1. The moral aspect of speech behavior ( development of communication abilities )

.

2. Speech etiquette in different communication situations.

3. Development of verbal and non-verbal means of communication.

4. Culture of listening.

.

1 BLOCK

includes work on developing the qualities necessary for communication (sympathy, openness, friendliness)

;

- developing the ability to listen and hear the interlocutor;

— mastering behavioral skills (expressing feelings, addressing statements)

;

— mastering techniques for stabilizing behavior

For this purpose, theatrical activities and staging are widely used, which help to increase self-confidence, teach the ability to fantasize, develop memory and creative imagination, and, most importantly, teach them to expressively convey the character of the characters and provoke active involvement in a specific situation.

For the desire to make contact, role-playing situations helps, which teaches joint activity in communication and mutual understanding. Various speech warm-ups, where speech technique , diction, tempo, rhythm, and the ability to control your voice are developed. Speech warm-ups are included in speech situations that help develop the ability to reason and distinguish the individual characteristics of other children and people . Also, mastery of communication skills can take place during observation, which helps to systematize knowledge and distinguish changes.

2. BLOCK

Speech etiquette.

The development of speech etiquette includes:

- mastering a set of stable stereotypes in situations (request, invitation, permission, advice, refusal, greeting, farewell, clarification);

- formation of signs of goodwill in speech;

— formation of awareness of the tone of communication;

- awareness and use of emotional characteristics in speech in the form of phraseological units.

For example:

a) acquaintance: let’s get acquainted, allow me to introduce myself, I would like to, let’s get acquainted;

b) farewell: all the best, all the best, good luck, see you soon;

c) congratulations, wishes: please accept congratulations, allow me to congratulate you;

d) gratitude: thank you for, thank you for, I am grateful to you;

d) apology: sorry for, please excuse me, must apologize, etc.

Teaching preschoolers speech etiquette is successful through the use of the following methods and techniques:

- reading fiction and conversations about the content help to understand the behavior of the characters, observe the order of speech actions, which leads to the conclusion that reading books is also communication;

- the use of special rituals (greeting and farewell, which create a feeling of unity and mutual support of all group members;

- participation in playing mini-dialogues, helping to understand that listening means taking an active part in the dialogue, learning to evaluate yourself as a listener, defending your point of view, developing a culture of verbal communication;

— free communication in the process of joint activities teaches polite communication, helps to determine the speaker’s feelings and sincerity;

— sketches teach you to pronounce phrases that carry different emotional connotations, choose the volume level, and understand that volume depends on the specific communication situation;

-video – audio materials that help determine the sequence of the plot and the behavior of the characters.

.

3. BLOCK.

Verbal and non-verbal communication

Teaching children methods of verbal and nonverbal communication includes:

- awareness of various ways to adequately express various emotions;

- the ability to express one’s emotions, while simultaneously mastering adequate ways to attract attention to oneself;

- reduction of impulsive emotional reactions.

For example:

1) sketches for the expression of various emotions;

2) facial expressions and pantomimes;

3) expressive movements;

4) muscle relaxation training.

These methods and techniques teach you to recognize the emotions of joy, sadness, fear, anger by facial expressions and intonations of the interlocutor’s voice, help to correlate words and movements, intensify mental activity, and make the lesson more effective and lively.

A large role is given to special techniques in this block:

5) breathing exercises help regulate speech breathing, correctly expend air when pronouncing a word or phrase;

6) articulatory gymnastics, which helps improve speech, develop clear pronunciation skills

4. BLOCK

Culture of listening

A culture of listening involves:

- the ability to maintain a conversation, express joyful pleasure, gratitude in response to the care of others, attention, politeness to children and adults (acquaintances and strangers)

;

- notice the difficulties of others, express a desire to help, not attract undue attention to oneself, maintain a conversation, respect for adults, tolerance for children;

- rejoice at the successes of your comrades;

- listen patiently to the speaker;

— resolve emerging disputes and conflicts fairly.

Joint children's improvisations, games with words and sounds are elements of artistic communication and for this purpose various forms of teaching children :

— educational games (dramatization games, role-playing games)

;

- exercises (imitative-performing and creative nature)

;

- sketches;

— improvisation, acting out dramatizations and fairy tales;

- observations, walks, excursions;

- examination of drawings and photographs;

— modeling, drawing up pictograms, diagrams of statements;

— analysis of given situations that help the development of a culture of verbal communication in different positions;

— free and thematic drawing helps to convey the character and feelings of the image;

- modeling and design help to tactilely feel the image;

- reading works of fiction;

- conversations, writing stories;

— watching puppet shows and conversations about them;

— exercises to develop expressiveness of performance (verbal and non-verbal)

;

— finger gymnastics helps develop fine motor skills in combination with speech.

Thus, the development of social and communicative behavior skills and self-confidence is facilitated by such an organization of children’s communicative activities , when each child has the opportunity to express himself in some role.

- children’s choice of dialogues at will;

- appointment of the most timid, shy children ;

- distribution of roles on cards (children take from the hands of the teacher any card on which a character is schematically depicted);

- playing dialogues, games and exercises in pairs

a huge role in conducting rhetoric . He must express his feelings not only in words, but also with a look, a smile, a gesture, through physical contact. A positive assessment and constant attention to positive manifestations in working with children are important.

During classes you must:

- listen carefully to children’s ;

- if they do not answer, do not demand an explanation, but proceed to actions with the character;

- when introducing children to the heroes of works, set aside time so that they can act or talk with them;

Thus, the introduction of rhetoric contributes to the successful formation of communicative and speech competencies in preschool children . Children feel and behave more relaxed, confident, and free. They construct sentences and entire phrases much better, and successfully use various expressions in speech. Logic is evident in their speech, the meaning of statements is clearer, their active vocabulary increases, their speech becomes more literate and convincing, and a sense of respect for their native language is fostered. Almost all children overcome their fear of public speaking and are more active and relaxed. And this largely determines the success of schooling.

Exercises to improve breathing

Stage speech exercises for children will necessarily include proper breathing. This technique in oratory is of great importance. Anyone giving an important speech to an audience cannot afford to inhale air through the mouth. This can lead to the fact that it gets confused, which is why a person will not be able to maintain intonation and place accents correctly. To work on your voice, your child will need to regularly perform special exercises:

1. Breathe through your nose with your mouth open for three to five minutes.
2. Place two hands at once on the solar plexus. Take a deep, slow breath (hold in this state for 3-4 seconds). At the same time, your hands will feel how your stomach rises, fills with air, and then falls back. Such fluctuation should be well expressed. If the child does not feel anything, then while inhaling he should tilt his body a little forward. Over time, the manipulation of drawing in air will need to be increased in duration.
3. Exercises to improve chest breathing. To do this, you need to take a deep breath, as if inhaling the aroma of flowers, then exhale slowly while drawing in your stomach. This exercise promotes free, fluent speech. A short inhalation and a long exhalation will help improve chest breathing. After this exercise is performed simply and quickly, you should begin to pronounce long phrases as you exhale.

Such activities are quite simple and are perfect for developing stage speech for children 7-9 years old. They should be carried out every day, and soon it will be possible to pronounce long phrases without hesitation or failure of breathing.

Appeal to all senses

If you want to convince, speak interestingly. Appeal to all the senses and, if possible, include multi-sensory elements in the story.

Psychology professor at the California Institute of California Richard Meier conducted such an experiment. He placed several students in a multi-sensory environment where, in addition to the usual lecture, participants received information through video, animation and text. As a result, such participants learned the material received much better and reproduced it with ease. Unlike the other group who only listened to the lecture.

Thus, Meyer concluded that if several channels of perception are used (hearing, vision, touch), the listener will perceive the idea more deeply, understand it better and remember it.

Advice! Use this rule when helping your child prepare a speech for a school holiday or an answer at the board.

Improved articulation

To make the pronunciation of individual sounds and letters clear and understandable, it is important to regularly train the organs that are responsible for articulation.

During your first lesson, you should start pronouncing vowels, consonants and simple connectives. With such training, it is important to monitor your voice; it should sound bright and loud, not like in everyday life.

Many tongue twisters will help improve your speech apparatus and diction. It is important to pronounce such poems quietly or in a half-whisper. Over time, the reading speed should increase and the volume should increase. The following types of tongue twisters should be considered when practicing stage speech for preschool children:

• “The bob got some beans.”
• “The clatter of hooves sends dust flying across the field.”
• “Prokop came - dill was boiling, Prokop left - dill was boiling.”

If a child has been taking stage speech lessons for a long time, then over time he can complicate his task by learning longer and more complex phrases. If he managed to remember and correctly recite the longest tongue twister, “Liguria,” then he will definitely become a good speaker.

Be convincing

...and also sincere, open and frank. An interlocutor who speaks with passion and is sincerely “on fire” with what he is talking about evokes much more trust and emotional response from listeners. TED curators suggest that emotional impact should account for 65% of the content of a speech, trust building should account for 10%, and facts and figures should account for 25%. Of course, these data may fluctuate depending on the topic and focus of the speech. For example, when defending an abstract, a child will pay more attention to statistical data.

Advice!

As an “emotional factor”, choose jokes, anecdotes, telling stories from your own life, interesting facts.

Diction and sound features

The correct sounding of the voice will help improve the expression of emotions. A person must learn to freely regulate timbre, range of sounds, intonation and overall volume. To improve your sound, you should do the following exercises:

1. Often read prose or poetry, regularly change the volume of speech. The first line should be spoken quietly, the second more loudly.
2. You should pronounce one phrase with one intonation, try to change the second using simple words, express your emotional state - happiness, surprise, fear, anger, and so on.
3. It is also important to develop your imagination well. You can imagine what kind of voice animals would speak in if they could do it. The verse should be told from the perspective of a dog, cat or hare.

Good diction is very important for stage speech. It helps to achieve significant success in a career, since people already in their subconscious listen more to a person’s clear pronunciation and pleasant words.

Effective exercises

You can develop good public speaking skills through the following exercises:

1. Stand up straight, cross your arms over your chest, spread your elbows to the sides. Take a deep breath, releasing excess air from your lungs, slowly leaning forward. Exhalation should be accompanied by the pronunciation of elongated vowel sounds.
2. Each time you should pronounce complex combinations of sounds - VZVA, LBAL, STFRA. At first, this exercise may seem too difficult, but over time everything will begin to work out.
3. You should try to read a short text with your mouth closed.

A stage speech lesson, like any other, will give a good effect. After completing a certain series of exercises, you should consolidate the result by reading a complex text as expressively as possible. If classes are held together with a teacher, he may offer to take a special test at the end of therapy.

Exercise “Tongue without bones”

This exercise will be a fun game of stage speech for children. The technique will help to work out the articulatory apparatus well, despite the fact that from the outside it looks more like ordinary antics. To prepare for a stage speech lesson, you should first do a short warm-up.

Articulation gymnastics has many advantages:

• the language will begin to work clearly and correctly;
• the feeling that the conversation is taking place with your mouth full will completely disappear;
• the pronunciation of sounds changes to be more clear.

Use gestures

Gestures and movements reinforce and reinforce what you want to say. According to research, active gesticulation and the use of complex combined gestures inspires listeners with confidence in the speaker’s words.

• Use hand gestures when speaking. Or at least don't keep them in your pockets.
• Try not to think about the movements. They must be natural.
• Physically note key points in the story. Use movement to enhance impression and create emphasis.
• Avoid closed and energy-deprived postures (eg, arms down). They undermine the speaker's credibility.

Advice!

Imagine a sphere. It starts at your eye level, goes forward at arm's length and passes through the center of your abdomen. This space is called the “sphere of influence.” According to TED experts, neither the speaker's hands nor eyes should leave this area during a presentation.

If you are looking for where to send your child to public speaking in Moscow, come to us, at Children's! With us, your child will learn to control the tempo of speech, understand how to correctly place pauses and accents, and learn to change the timbre and pitch of the voice depending on the goals of the speech.

By teaching your children the art of rhetoric now, you are laying an invaluable foundation for their success in the future!

Technique

To carry out the “Boneless Tongue” exercise, you should use a simple mirror. To do this, you need to stand in front of him and start a simple warm-up:

1. Open your mouth a little. With the end of your tongue, begin to perform circular movements in different directions. You should perform 10 rotations clockwise and then counterclockwise.
2. Next, open your mouth wide, stick out your tongue completely and carefully lift its sides up. In this case, something like a tube should form. Next, you should start trying to move your folded tongue and blow into it.
3. Use your tongue to clean the surface of the lower and upper teeth. Try to repeat this exercise with your mouth closed and open.

Gently biting your tongue will help slightly relieve the tension in such a muscle. The exercises should be repeated before speaking, in which case the speech will be clear and well understood.

Basic exercises

All exercises for mastering rhetoric are performed so that the body is straightened and the chest is freely expanded. The training room is ventilated in advance. Extraneous sounds, music, street noise can distract children, so it is better to create silence. The adult is positioned so that the child can see the movements of his tongue and jaw. If the child does not want to study, there is no need to insist; exercises and games can be done in between. Only in a good mood can you talk for a long time and enthusiastically.

Exercise "Traffic"

This exercise is considered the easiest to improve the functioning of the speech apparatus. It will bring good results if you do it constantly. The “Cork” technique is quite popular among both children and adults. This fun activity will help:

• strengthen the muscles of the lips, cheeks and upper palate;
• tighten the skin on the face, hide small wrinkles and nasolabial folds;
• improve speech and diction.

Experts say that such lessons will be useful not only for future artists and stage performers, but also for those who want to maintain the condition of their skin and avoid age-related changes.

The lesson is conducted using the following technique: first you should prepare a small plastic or wooden cork from a champagne bottle. Then learn and prepare a tongue twister. Then clamp the plug in your front teeth. Without releasing it, you should begin to pronounce phrases and repeat them several times at once. This way you can accurately identify which sounds a person produces better and which sounds worse. It is important to regularly improve your pronunciation, train your articulatory apparatus, and also speed up your reading.

A person practicing tongue twisters with a champagne cork usually looks very strange. This kind of fun stage speech training can be a fun activity for the whole family and can be done in the form of a small competition. Each person must read the tongue twister using any unusual method, and then determine who did it best.

Maintain timing and do not overload your audience with information

Did you know that one TED speaker's talk is only 18 minutes long? This duration was not chosen by chance. According to research, during this time the listener does not have time to get tired of the report, and the speaker has the opportunity to develop the idea.

According to TED curator Chris Anderson, the 18-minute requirement creates discipline and helps achieve clarity of thought. There is nothing worse than long, meaningless speeches, and an overabundance of information creates a “cognitive blockage” in the minds of listeners and prevents a normal understanding of the speaker’s ideas.

In public speaking courses for teenagers, students often perform timed exercises. Try at home with your child for a few minutes (not 18, of course!) to retell the plot of a book or movie. Who will do it better and more imaginatively?

How to learn stage speech?

Professionals in this field, who help both children and adults prepare speech and diction techniques, use various teaching methods. The following are effective ways to improve your voice. The most common include:

1. Continuous development of stage speech. The specialist offers a choice of several sets of exercises, between which there is a logical connection. You should not take long breaks during class.
2. Stepped complication. The student begins to actively develop the level of his speech with simple material, then the load increases.
3. Use of games. Training stage speech through exciting activities is considered the most enjoyable, since during the lessons the student relies on his imagination. Fun game lessons often have a good effect.
4. Partnerships. During the lesson, the teacher and the child must communicate as equals. The teacher only advises, but does not order to repeat certain exercises.

Stage speech is useful for every person. To achieve a good result, you should prepare yourself for the fact that you will have to regularly train, improve yourself and learn new techniques. A child’s perseverance and hard work will help develop his oratory abilities.