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Show ACTION differentiations of real 29 speech can never be written down in black and white. Little, if any good will come from practicing set gestures, posi tions of the feet, drills trying to place the hand "prone," "supine," or This sort of thing given in high "vertical" in any selection. Such or college is just so much valuable time wasted. school gesture-drills, like the Rush drills on the mechanics of vocal phe nomena-never tie up with the real cause of speech, the real impulse Instead of mechanical drills which produce noth to communicate. but mechanical ing reading, students of speech should be urged to take any and all physical activity possible so that the body may be Exercises for the trained for easy and ready nervous response. of no more value than any other of set are gestures development in them the from lies in that the danger gymnastic exercises; fact, attention of the student will be centered on how he is doing rather than what he is doing, and he will be overcome with restricting, baneful self-consciousness through centering his attention on his body. He is hampered by the complexity of his own mechanism if such gesture becomes conscious. Think of how you walk, and becomes difficult. walking immediately Helpful Criticism. The student should not have his attention called to the mechanics of action. But the teacher must be thor theory and practice of gesture. oughly a Only by having thorough knowledge of these principles may the teacher have a definite standard of criticism. The finest reader or speaker may be developed without knowing one principle of speech, if his teacher is thoroughly conversant with the underlying cause and behavior of speech action. In the sentence, "He covered the blue-print with a piece of paper," it would not be wise to urge the student to follow such divorced proceedings as "practicing with the 'prone hand.'" If this sentence came in the material being in class a given by student, and the student used a "supine hand," how much more illuminating it would be to him and to the entire conversant with the entire class if the teacher would call attention to the fact that one does lay anything down with the palm of the hand up ("supine"), ("prone"). The entire in hand is this principle of prone and supine way understood when not hut rather with the palm of the hand down |
