ABSTRACT
Choral speech is an essential of good poetry teaching. Yet it is not merely a part of ‘Method’, but an activity in its own right, demanding considerable invention from, teacher and class, and repaying their efforts in a most satisfying manner. Handled properly it gratifies the creative, dramatic, and even the exhibitionist, tendencies which most of us possess; and at the same time it gives deep insights into individual poems and impresses them effortlessly upon the memory. There are two main approaches to choral speech, the ‘tonal’ and the ‘dramatic’. If this essential point is grasped and accepted by the reader, that choral speaking is an act of group creation in which the invention will be found to be spontaneous, just like other creative work in poetry when it is properly encouraged. Vowelling is an important aspect of good choral speaking and one should be able to convey one’s requirements simply if melopeia is to emerge in performance.
