30th March 2021

A personal blog for one of my special students, my Princess, but one which will, hopefully, be of use to princesses everywhere.

We like to encourage students to imitate the speech patterns of native-speakers by which I mean the way we link words together, form contractions (‘I’d’ instead of ‘I would’ etc), and use paralinguistics to convey meaning (intonation, stress, body language).

However, students need individual assistance so while my Princess has remarkable lexical resources, as well as the ability to tell an anecdote or two, she could improve aspects of her pronunciation.

Therefore, I have prepared some clips for princesses the world over to use for speaking practice … and so, without further ado, princesses prepare to sound like a Queen

Clip 1 features the famous British actress Dame Judi Dench who is being interviewed and therefore speaking in her natural voice. The clip has subtitles, and I suggest watching the section from 02:06 – 02:36 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auOpam5y9Co&ab_channel=TheJamesBondVisualArchive

Clip 2 features Angela Rippon, who was the first woman to present the news on the BBC. Interestingly, she is announcing the General Election of 1979 that lead to the first woman Prime Minister in the UK, Margaret Thatcher:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysVzc3hSB50&ab_channel=bbctim123

Clip 3 is for advanced princesses; to speak like a queen, one should listen to the Queen. I present, with subtitles, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2klmuggOElE&ab_channel=BBC

We shall meet again, in the next blog. Until then, farewell, cheerio, toodle pip … goodbye my princesses.