SPEECH TRAINING.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 292, 10 December 1925, Page 17

SPEECH TRAINING.

/I£MPHATICAJLI.Y TEACHER'S DUTY." ' OFFICIAL MANUAL PUBLISHED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, this clay. jho common faults in the speech of Vetf Zealand school children arc careiully analysed in a special booklet on ineech training about to be issued by the Department of Education. This Instructional work is intended for the ' o f teachers, and it reminds them that it is emphatically the teachers duty to leach all his pupils to speak lUndard English, and to speak it dettTly, and with expression. _ > Children acquire language by inutajj ofl , Habit strengthens the memory jmaires and the form of utterance. The .fold's speech, it is pointed out. is moulded by that of the people around jiiiil, their speech becoming his pattern. Statistics ~avc P rovwl tllat most speech defects develop between the ages of five and nine—that is, after the child has entered school. "It -will bo evident, therefore, that {[, c teacher's speech—its correctness of enunciation and its freedom from vuljtnrisras—will have a determining inflildiice on the speech habits of his fripils. Indeed, the teacher should Constitute himself a model from which {lie child can fashion his speech. Phonetic tules are quite out of place, with Wing children, spoken language being the result of imitation not of rule." Some valuable exercises in pronunciation of all the vowels and consonants ate given in the booklet, and the current faults are rioted, with suggestions for tWi , elimination, the writers giving a »ood deal of attention to what might be called the mechanics of speech, but jlwiiys reminding the reader that the children will learn imitatively. Slf James Parr. Minister of Education, suggests in a foreword to the booklet that"it is the right of every one to lie taught to speak in the manner that marks the educated man. "The fact tlittfc faulty accent is here and there beginning tb show itself makes it desirable that closer attention should be Bivptl to speech training, and that definite hnd systematic teaching of correct English speech should be given at the outset in our schools.

"The Department has therefore prepared this special report to assist students in training colleges and tenders generally in arranging series of exercises on this subject. Suggestions Ife included-for the treatment of defective epeech, of wliicli unfortunately tliard is a good deal more in the schools than the public is aware of." •