Poem Reading #1 by Bruce Lin

I was surprised to listen to Kuo Chu, Chih Wei, Hui Ming, and Hui Ling reading the poem. Their poem readings were way beyond my expectation. They had practiced reading the poem and presented us with nice productions. I know little about poems, and I added poem reading onto the pronunciation course because…well…why not? It seemed fun.

I wanted to use the course to make people interested in English, and funny that these four people’s poem reading made me interested in studying poetry even more.

The following are my suggestions on their readings of the first poem, Morning XXVII:

Kuo Chu

Kuo Chu was the first one in the class to step on stage. He did not hurry to finish the reading (people normally tend to read very fast because of stage fright), and he did carefully inject emotion into the reading. Every word was flowing out clearly. Voice soothing. He can graduate now.

Mispronounced words: round, lines, night, rosy, withdraw, tunnel, clothing

Chih Wei

Chih Wei marched to the front and read the poem like a soldier. Every word was hammered out. His reading was more like a slogan reading than a poem reading. He needed to add some romantic tinge to his voice to interpret the sexy poem, which should not be difficult. Chih Wei’s English was the clearest of all. Good composure on stage.

Mispronounced words: small, round, chores, dressed

Hui Ming

The first thing Hui Ming should do is turn up the volume of her voice, because reading aloud is about getting the audience to feel the emotion. It’s okay to mispronounce words. Her reading is somewhat like a little bird chirping. She also needed to have intonation in her reading. That said, the poem was smoothly rendered and her practice had showed some results.

Mispronounced words: naked, simple, wheat, vines, spacious, nails, curved, rosy, born, world, tunnel, dressed

Hui Ling

Hui Ling’s voice was bright, natural, and unforced. She read the poem with tender confidence and it was rendered beautifully. Not many things to be picked about. All she needs to do is continue to read more because she already has good basics. Hope her restless boy can learn from her.

Mispronounced words: naked, round, nails, rosy, born, withdraw, underground, world, tunnel, dressed.

Remember two things when you read: (1) read every word well (then there is a possibility to read the whole sentence well); (2) read the whole thing with emotion, life, and soul. (In other words, don’t sound like a robot)


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