8. A lesson in "teacher voice"
I chat with primary teacher Miss Annie Farrugia about how her years of voice training have set her up for success in the classroom.
Transcript
Sally: I'm Sally Prosser, you're listening to That Voice Podcast. No matter who you are or what you do, your voice matters unless you've sworn lifetime vow of silence, this is the podcast for you. Now, I need to be on my best behavior in this episode because I'm chatting to a school teacher, although I actually used to be her teacher, so maybe she's more nervous than me today. It's my pleasure to chat with Annie Farrugia or Miss Annie as I should say, welcome to the show.
Annie: Thank you for having me.
Sally: So what I'd like to start with is ask you, would you be able to do your job if you lost your voice?
Annie: No, it wouldn't be impossible. The demands on a teacher's voice are incredible. I did go a couple of days last week where my voice wasn't where it should have been because I was ill and an illness happens and the students struggled and I struggled because we just couldn't effectively communicate with each other.
Sally: Yeah. Tell me more about that. How much of a struggle is it when your voice isn't on your A-game?
Annie: It's exceptionally hard having to talk over his children at different points of the day or over the, the noises outside. You know, my classroom backs into the school playground. So if anyone's out there doing sport, it's already, you're already battling with that noise. So if you're not able to use your voice appropriately, the kids don't understand. They're not getting their instructions. It's frustrating for you. It's frustrating for them and it just ends up with a whole lot of chaos in the small classroom.
Sally: I can imagine. Yeah. You mentioned the noise from the running around in the playground. What other obstacles do you have to battle with?
Annie: So our school is under reconstruction at the moment. So we're battling with some some tractors and trucks and the construction workers who seem to talk at all points of the day. You've got different environmental noises, so you've got the cars outside, you've just got some chatty kids. And any announcements that come over the loudspeaker.
Sally: Yeah. So you and I know each other quite well because you were my very first speech and drama student. Can you believe back when I would have been about 15 or 16 years old. So we are going, let's just say back more than definitely more than 10, 15 years. So we worked a lot every week - coming along for your speech and drama lesson - we did a lot of voice work. Can you tell me how you think that's helped you with what you're doing now?
Annie: Working on my articulation and slowing my voice down has definitely assisted. Being that a lot of my boys have, I teach a class of boys, given that they have a lot of processing issues, auditory processing issues, being able to slow myself down and really express the main points of what I'm trying to say has been so beneficial as well as having that crisp, clear articulation. It's fundamental to the phonics program that we do. Having students who don't necessarily have the clearest speech, making sure that I'm always showing them and demonstrating and modelling how to form words or sounds properly in my mouth so they can imitate it to assist their speech is really good as well as the fact of when I, you know, get to read books then, which I love, I love story time with them. I've got this really expressive voice that the kids just love and they do really respond to.
Sally: Yeah. So do you think that the expressiveness of the voice is the main thing that kids respond to or is it also the tone and the volume? Take us through what you think it is about the voice that helps the kids not just behave but also learn.
Annie: Definitely the tone and the volume are so paramount, you know, I've only been teaching for about five years now. And I'm just really honing in now on the different volumes to use. Being that we are quite a small classroom with only a few kids. If I use my big outdoor teacher voice, I scare the kids. So it's knowing in myself what volume to be using at different times. In saying that today I had one of the year five classes come in for about 30 minutes and the volume that I used was very, very different to the voice that I normally use with my little kindergarten class as well as the tone. So having that really laid back friendly tone that comes through with my voice, that nurturing tone that comes through is really important to these little kids who need that, that love.
I use my scary teacher voice yesterday, by accident. It just accidentally popped out and one of my boys burst into tears and it wasn't even aimed at him it was aimed at someone else on the playground. They're just not used to seeing that and hearing that. Having a class of kids with autism as well their ears are so sensitive, they're very noise sensitive. So it's really working on, on that side of my voice. And that's something that I still work on every day. It's a constant battle with me as I have a big expressive voice, very common of European people. I'm just holding it back in to deal with my little, my little friends.
Sally: Yeah. So Annie, you're not just a regular school teacher, you work with a special group of kids. So just tell us a bit more about that.
Annie: So I teach a kindergarten class of kids with level one and level two autism. I decided my second year into uni having worked with a play-based program that this was the field of education I wanted to learn more about and I wanted to go into, and I'm very lucky to be living out my dream every day. So my class has four little gentlemen in it. They're all six and seven, so, Oh, sorry. They're all five or six so all kindergarten age and they're exceptionally noise sensitive. So it's whenever we access the playground, it's wearing noise canceling headphones. If I go to assemblies, it's noise canceling headphones just to help reduce that volume for them cause their little ears can't process out all the extra sounds and it does become quite overwhelming for them and can lead to anxiety overloads, which could be demonstrated through meltdowns - those typical meltdowns that you can see. So just having that, the ability and the knowledge about my voice and how to use my voice has really allowed me to connect with these little friends and to support them,how they need to be supported, which is different to their neurotypical counterparts.
Sally: Yeah. So would you say different in the way that when you've just got your four little boys, you use a softer tone?
Annie: Yes. It's a softer tone. There's a lot more, I speak a lot slower and a lot clearer and I only really use the keywords that we need to be using or emphasizing those keywords.
Sally: It's a very, very special job that you do. Do you notice with other teachers that some, you know, not naming names or anything, but do you find other teachers struggle with their voice or struggle to get attention from the kids because of the way they use it?
Annie: Yes. That just the fact with teaching that everyone has different behavior management techniques or don't necessarily know how to use their voice appropriately and it can cause problems later on down the track. I guess in the industry we're in where we're using a lot of nonverbal cues as well with, with our students to help gain their attention because teachers don't know how to use their voices appropriately and it does lead to a lot of vocal strain and can, you know, result in laryngitis. So yeah, so some vocal cord problems. So I know our area they do offer vocal courses for teachers to do because vocal strain is such a huge issue within the industry.
Sally: Yes. And I'm going to put you to the test a little bit here. As one of my former students, what aren't they doing correctly that is putting that strain on the voice? Let's see how much you remember.
Annie: They didn't know how to use their voices to control their voices. Was that the rival?
Sally: Yeah, absolutely. I would say that generally it comes back to speaking too much from the throat and not enough from the diaphragm using the breath. And that's why you can sometimes get that really screechy sound or the voice gets too high pitched, which is what I've heard with teachers as well.
Annie: Yes. We're actually using our intercostal muscles and our breathing muscles every day. It's one of the best ways of teaching the kids how to calm themselves down when they're having those meltdowns. So all my boys know the word intercostal diaphragmatic breathing. We're learning to say it properly at the moment, but we do lots of breathing techniques in the classroom, including ones that I learned back when I was a student I enjoyed. So yeah, I bring them back into my own classroom now.
Sally: Yeah, I love that because as you know, the breathing exercises don't just help with the voice. They also just help with generally being calmer, which is really important in the classroom. I've got a friend of mine who's a teacher and she said that she knows some of her colleagues by Friday, every single week they have this extremely sore throat. Do you see the same thing?
Annie: Even more common, especially during the winter months when people are already contending with colds and flus. Yeah. Their voices are just so tired. Excessive speaking or over speaking is also so common because we have to be heard, we've got to communicate so much in such a little time that we don't rest our voices enough or look after our voices enough to handle the demands of the job.
Sally: Do you do any sort of voice warm-ups at the start of the week or the start of the day?
Annie: I do regularly go through tongue twisters, only because I know I speak exceptionally fast and I need to slow myself down, but I do breathing exercises myself every morning. One to calm the nerves and the anxieties of not knowing what you're going to go into that day and just to prepare myself as well for what's coming up to slow my own body down. They're probably my main ones. However, we have been doing lots of work, we've got a school production coming up at the moment. So it's also then helping other kids with other exercises to prepare their voices as well. So lots of jumping and running on the spot and trying to maintain that clear articulation and not getting so breathy when they're speaking.
Sally: Yeah. So can you take us through what breathing exercise you do?
Annie: So I lay on my back with my hands on my stomach and take big, deep breaths in focusing on my stomach rising and falling and not moving my shoulders when I'm breathing. Another one that we've got is we've got some blow up animals that I absolutely love and I've put photos up of them on my teaching Instagram page @teaching_with_miss_annie. They're just from Kmart. They were $2. The boys love them. You take a big breath in through your stomach and you're going to breathe as much as you can, as much as you can into these animals. They're animals. And yeah, so you see the ball inflate and then it's up to the students whether they want to see their animal deflate by just obviously removing the straw from their mouth or whether they want to pull the straw out and keep their animal inflated for a certain period of time.
We've also been playing, there's a brilliant board game put out by Hasbro called Birthday Blowout where there's some candles on a cake and it sings 'Happy Birthday' and then it does a three second countdown and you need to blow out as many candles as you can. Now I've tried to trick the system and breathe from my clavicular area, and it just does not work. I cannot blow out those candles at the speed that we need to to win the game. So we've seen huge improvements in that as well with the boys.
Sally: I love that!
Annie: It's so interactive. We love it. We absolutely love that game. And we love our animals from Kmart as well.
Sally: Yeah. And what tongue twisters do you remember?
Annie: Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, a peck of pickled peppersPeter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?
Sally: Oh, pretty good. The only thing I would say, you've just got to watch out for that T being replaced by the D. So instead of Peder Piper, we want Peter Piper.
Annie: Of course, I gotta slow myself down. No, we've been trying to do them with the boys as well. With our structured phonics program that we do, where we learn a different sound every couple of days, there's been the ability to bring some of those tongue twisters in which they love because it's nice and it's fun and it's fast. And it's exciting for me because I'm seeing them that they're finally remembering sounds as I hold up one letter, they're telling me the sound and then trying to say tongue twister along with it as well. So it's very interactive. We have a very noisy but fun and productive classroom.
Sally: Yeah. Fantastic. And now let's talk about how your voice and presentation has helped you, not just in the classroom with the kids, but for yourself and your own career. So potentially with your colleagues or in job interviews and stuff like that.
Annie: One thing that I've been told every time I go for a job interview, is that I'm extremely composed. They wouldn't know that on the inside I'm shaking like a leaf, but I've done the vocal training and I've done exams and I've done eisteddfods and I've learned how to manage that anxiety and how to still use my voice effectively. So by using my deep breaths, by taking my pauses by using different intonations and different inflections, it helps me come across as a confident person, which I am, but obviously in different circumstances, you know, there is the chance that anxieties or nervousness rather is present.
Sally: Yeah. And it also helps with dealing with parents. I can imagine.
Annie: Yes, especially when you know what you're in for when a meeting gets called. So it's been fantastic. I mean, even as I'm progressing through my career, I'm now presenting to different teachers at conferences or presenting in smaller meetings. So being able to be really assured in myself and know that my voice isn't going to crack and break and going to go raspy and I know how to use it, it definitely takes one of the pressures off when you're getting ready to perform or to have that conversation with people.
Sally: Yeah. Fantastic. And what piece of advice would you give any young teachers coming up through uni who might feel like their voice is their weak spot?
Annie: Go and find a vocal coach or watch Sally's You Tube and get some ideas. Because if you don't know how to use your voice appropriately, you're not going to have the success in the classroom that you're going to, you're going to desire,
Sally: Oh, couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks Annie. So finally you have a very successful Instagram page. Where can people find you?
Annie: You can find me @teaching_with_miss_annie on Instagram and soon to be a Facebook page as well, very exciting.
Sally: Oh well Annie thank you so much for coming on the show it was such an interesting chat and I'm so pleased to hear that you still remember those exercises that we did all those years ago.
Annie: Thank you very much for having me.
Sally: Annie is just gorgeous. Her students are so lucky to have her. I was a bit hard on her though with her tongue twister.
Remember she said "Peder Piper picked" rather than "Peter Piper picked." So in the next episode I'm going to cover off a few exercises you can do to achieve crisp, clear articulation by speaking more clearly and crisply and articulately. Not only will you be better understood, but you're going to sound smarter, right? And who doesn't want to sound smarter or at least have the ability to. Now, if you want to get ahead of the game, then you can jump onto my online program - How to release your true voice and genuinely connect and the part in there all about this is called the sweet sound of competence because that's what crisp articulation really is, it's that sweet sound of competence, the sound of knowing what you're talking about, the sound of really being on top of things, which I'm sure you would want to sound like. So I will see you back here for the next episode. And in the meantime, for more information, head to the podcast page, which is www.thatvoicepodcast.com.