Atomic Pronunciation Habits
Recently, I’ve listened to the Atomic Habits audiobook and it’s got me thinking about what other things I can encourage English language learners to do to practice their English pronunciation.
Let’s recap the main points of Atomic Habits with a lens of accent modification.
Remember, that it’s building the small habits that is important.
Small habits can have a huge impact on your life.
Aiming to get 1% better every day and you will be 37x better every year because of the compounding effect!
Habits are formed and reinforced via a constant 4 step system:
Cue —> Craving —> Response —> Reward
Four Rules To Build Good Habits
1. Make It Obvious
Habit Scorecard - Create a scorecard to become aware of your English pronunciation habits. Start recognizing that your pronunciation is simply a habit, a product of your exposure (or lack of exposure) to a way of pronunciation. And you can create new habits and new pronunciations if you’d like.
Be Specific About Implementation - Express your intention with your English pronunciation. I will (behaviour) at (time) in (location). Whether that is expressing your intention to practice your English pronunciation skills at a set time of day, at home or during your commute to work, being clear with yourself about your expectations and planned implementation can be a quick unlock for people.
Habit Stacking - Identify an old habit you already do and stack a new habit on top of it. After (current habit) I will (new habit). Maybe something as simple as asking a native English speaker to repeat their name immediately after introducing themselves and then you repeat it back to them and ask for immediate feedback on your pronunciation. Even a simple new habit like that will get you one extra repetition from a native English speaker and one moment of immediate feedback from a native English speaker more than you currently get. That is two extra opportunities for feedback and learning.
Again, this focus on improving 1% can have exponential impact.
Create A Success Driven Environment - By designing your space and environment to make the things you’ll need accessible, give yourself the tools to learn. Whether that’s a voice recording app on your phone, a dictionary, a pen & paper for writing the phonetic pronunciation or your new words for the day, a running list of words to practice pronouncing, or even something simple like masking tape and the English name to stuff around the house taped up.
2. Make It Attractive
Temptation Bundling - You have to make your intended good habits attractive for motiivation. Link an action you want to do with one you need to do. After (I need) I will (want).
Make it a reward system based on your English practice. After I practice my R-sound, I will order a Rocky Road Ice Cream. In fact, I can order “Rocky Road” ice cream using my R-sound.
3. Make It Easy
Reduce Friction - Decrease the number of steps between you and your good habit. Make learning and practice simple. If tech and apps and YouTube are too challenging and frustrating, using a notepad is great. Use flashcards if you prefer that. Keep a pen and pad of paper in your back pocket.
You don’t need some fancy system. You don’t need the latest and greatest and most efficient methods of learning. Just start.
The 2 Minute Rule - Start small for 2 minutes only. No need to throw yourself into hours of habit-doing. Just 2 minutes. Two minutes of reading R-words to practice your R-sound. Two minutes of reading aloud to even hear yourself speak and enunciate. Two minutes to work on your pausing, your intonation, your pitch variation.
Goldilocks Rule - Start with habits that are just right (not too hard but not too easy). Pick something that has a growth curve to it, something that you don’t quite have yet but it’s not a month’s long endeavour.
Prepare Your Environment - Make future actions easy. Make some shortcuts on your phone for easy access to your word list. Put it on the homepage of your phone app. Set up your list of words to practice a day in advance so tomorrow it’s easy to just get started.
4. Make It Satisfying
Building new habits requires creating a system that consistently rewards us or promotes positive emotions.
Positive emotions cultivate habits. Negative emotions destroy habits.
The key is celebrating your successes in English pronunciation. Whether that is successfully communicating your message easily, without the need for repetition, with confidence, these things can all impact your emotionality towards an interaction.
Building these moments up in your head and celebrating them when you achieve them can be a powerful tool for enticing you to continue to push forward.
Be your own hype man. Imagine how great it’ll be ordering food from the phone and not needing to repeat yourself. Imagine how proud you’ll feel when you ask for assistance with a product at the store and you explain yourself in one go. Imagine how confident and professional you will feel, presenting your business pitch and getting a thumbs up from your boss.
These moments can have huge positive impacts on your self-confidence and fuel your positive emotions towards these habits.
