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Learn English with our free online listening, grammar, vocabulary and reading activities. Practise your English and get ready for your Cambridge English exam.

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PZ's Thinking Routines Toolbox | Project Zero

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The Toolbox organizes the Thinking Routines into categories that describe the types of thinking the routines help to facilitate. Some routines appear in more than one category, and some routines have different versions that offer modifications for specific age groups or more specific conceptual challenges.

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Supporting World Language Learning for Students with Disabilities

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Supporting World Language Learning for Students with Disabilities

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Student-Made E-Books: A Beautiful Way to Demonstrate Learning

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Student-Made E-Books: A Beautiful Way to Demonstrate Learning

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Listen to this post as a podcast:
You've reached the end of a unit or year, and you want students to demonstrate their learning in a way that requires them to synthesize information, apply it in new ways, and reflect on how they have grown. To achieve any of these goals, an end-of-unit exam doesn't quite cut it. You could have students do presentations...that's always an option. But here's one more: Have students create their own PDF e-books, packaging up some aspect of their learning into a finished digital product they can enjoy and share for years.

What Kind of E-Book Are We Talking About?

When you hear the term "e-book," you might be thinking about the kind of thing you can read on a Kindle or Nook, and yes, those are e-books. But a broader definition includes PDF files, which don't require any kind of special device to read. They also don't require any high-tech software to create; I'll show you how that works in a minute.

To get these templates, see the link at the end of this post.

Because this kind of e-book is ridiculously easy to create, having students make them is an excellent option for all kinds of final projects. And because lots of businesses now use e-books like these in their own work, assigning them to students gives them an extra skill they can take into their adult lives.

The Power of Visual Packaging

For some students, having an opportunity to put their words together with images and arrange it all into one tidy package creates a different kind of work ethic than you'd find if you just assigned a paper. Because the finished looks and feels a lot more like a "real" product of some kind, and has the potential to be a visually appealing one at that, you may find that students put a bit more effort into it.

Paintings in these images were created by Gwenn Seemel. Licensed under CC BY 2.0.

So Many Possibilities

Once your students have learned how to create e-books (and there's a video below that shows them how), you can use this medium to have them create a massive array of projects. E-books could be assigned to a whole class or as a way to offer additional challenge to advanced students. Here's just a beginning list of ideas for student-created e-books:

Mini-Textbooks that teach a single concept or group of ideas from your course material.

Book Reports or analyses that take the reader through the most significant moments of a book, compare several books to one another, introduce a selection of works from one author, or look at a central theme (e.g., "Images of Fatherhood") as it is depicted in a collection of books.

Portfolios of a student's art, photography, writing, or poetry.

To get these templates, see the link at the end of this post.

Year-in-Review Books that explore concepts from the school year like lessons learned, best moments, special people, turning points, or important challenges throughout the year.

Children's Books that explore a concept learned in class or simply tell a good story.

Guidebooks offering advice and instructions for next year's students.

How-To Books that teach the reader something about which a student has some level of expertise (think informational writing!)

Collections where students curate their favorite books, movies, quotes, video games, apps, memories, or even photos of meaningful places, objects, or people.

Reflective Journals students keep and build throughout the year to document their growth or thinking on a particular topic.

Memoir-Style Books that document a student's journey through a Genius Hour or 20% Time project.

Club or Activity Books that chronicle the accomplishments of members of a sports team or club.

Professional Portfolios that could eventually be used as part of a job search. Teachers could also build their own professional portfolios in this same way.

How to Make an E-Book

If you have PowerPoint, which many, many people do, you already have all the tools you need to create an e-book. This video shows you how it works:

Get the Templates

The designs used to create the e-books in this post are available as individual PowerPoint templates or all together in a bundle. Each template also includes a link to the same template set up in Google Slides!! Click the image below to learn more:

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Student-Made E-Books: A Beautiful Way to Demonstrate Learning

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Need a fresh idea for the end of a unit? Instead of writing a paper or doing presentations, have students create PDF e-books they can enjoy and share for years.

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Do you want to improve your English pronunciation? Well, you've come to the right place. Tim's Pronunciation Workshop shows you how English is really spoken. It'll help you become a better listener and a more fluent speaker.

The Sounds of English

Scroll down to the bottom of this page for The Sounds of English, our video guide to all the consonant and vowel sounds in the English language. Watch, listen and repeat. It's as simple as that!

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Do you want to improve your English pronunciation? Well, you've come to the right place. Tim's Pronunciation Workshop shows you how English is really spoken. It'll help you become a better listener and a more fluent speaker.

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New interactive exercise to practice word stress placement.

Do You Want to Improve Your Pronunciation? Learn About Word Stress!

This website has been designed to help English language learners develop their understanding and mastering of word stress in English.

Developing understanding of word stress in English will greatly improve pronunciation and oral comprehension.

Is It Difficult?

It depends on what you already know and your goals, but you should know that learning word stress rules in English is not an easy task and requires a certain minimum of time and effort. If you have limited time, check out the handouts listed in the menu on the right ->

What Do I Need to Know Before Starting?

The way the materials have been created here does not require you to have too much prior knowledge about phonetics or phonology in English, although it will help if you are familiar with the International Phonetic Alphabet to read phonetic transcriptions.

The Approach

The approach focuses primarily on prefixes and suffixes to understand the stress pattern for a large percentage of the English lexicon (the rules presented here will not allow you to predict the stress of all English words, but a great majority).

1. First, learn about the notion of stress in English.

2. Then, learn about word structure, before you...

3. work on word stress rules.

4. Finally, practice what you have learned with these exercises.

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New interactive exercise to practice word stress placement. This website has been designed to help English language learners develop their understanding and mastering of word stress in English. Developing understanding of word stress in English will greatly improve pronunciation and oral comprehension.

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INCORPORATING STORIES INTO THE CLASSROOM

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INCORPORATING STORIES INTO THE CLASSROOM

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One of the most powerful language experiences for a young child is to listen to a story. It can be a picture book, a personal story, an anecdote, a family joke, a whimsical poem, a song or an old fable. Whatever the style, we must remember that stories are like a journey to the child that opens up the world and reveal secrets, hidden under magical stones.

Children may start reading quite naturally and according to their own personal needs and curiosity, but sometimes we underestimate how difficult it can be for some of them to grasp the words, the sounds, and their meaning, especially in a second language.

Telling stories is within all of us, so practicing the skills to tell a good story in your classroom, can be key in setting the stage for your students' language and literacy skills. For teachers of another language, it will be important to think of ways to transfer meaning and build connections between the words, the images, and the story message. The simple act of listening is a fundamental skill that is the first building block for speaking, reading, and writing.

Stories are all around us

Stories are all around us and can come in many forms. They can be from a book, they can be a song, a rhyme, a photograph, a recording, a letter, an interview, etc.

I've been using storytelling in my classroom for many years now, so I'd like to share some of the things that have worked well for me and my students.

Let's start by looking at the ways we can tell a story in our classroom.

How can we use stories in our classroom?

By reading from a book and showing the class the illustrations.

By memorizing, the story and making it jump off the page by using gestures, our body language, puppets, objects etc...

Having the book in your hand and reading straight from its pages is perhaps the most common form, and for novice teachers, perhaps the best initial way to practice the art of storytelling.

Here are some of the positives:

You don't have to learn the story off by heart.

You won't have to worry about making mistakes with the language.

The pictures in the books will help with understanding.

Reading shows that books are a source of interesting ideas.

Watching someone read from a book also encourages reading.

You can follow the words with your finger as you read.

Repeating the same story a number of times can help students develop language skills and improve their reading comprehension.

6 Tips on reading aloud from a book

1. Let the students choose the story or at least give them a choice of three.

2. Show students that we should handle books with awe and wonder, and that they are special treasures.

3. Talk about the cover, the title, and ask students questions about it before you read.

4. Hold up the book so that everyone can see the illustrations and give children time to see the little details.

5. Use your voice to set the scene, give characters a different voice and use a variety of volumes and paces.

6. When you finish telling the story, close the book slowly with care and reverence so that the magic continues.

Storytelling

While this mode of storytelling is more challenging for the majority of teachers, it can be so rewarding in the end. You don't have to have any drama or artistic skills, you just have to practice!

Here are some of the benefits:

It can have a very powerful and positive effect because children these days are not used to the experience of hearing someone tell a story.

They will feel that you are giving them something personal.

You can modify the language according to the students' age range.

You can use your body, your movements, and gestures more kinesthetically.

You can watch the children's faces, and how they respond to the story while you are telling it.

6 Tips for a storytelling session

1. Choose a story that connects and reverberates with you and your students.

2. Decide on what extra props you might want to use, ex: a special storytelling hat, a puppet, sound effects, specific objects that come up in the story, etc.

3. Practice the story a number of times and use a mirror to watch yourself.

4. Get the students to sit close to you, in a semi-circle, on the floor if possible, and use a story warm-up to get them focused.

5. Organize the story sequence in your mind but leave some space for improvisation if something happens.

6. Give time for students to react to the narrative, laugh, clap their hands, etc.

Whichever way you choose to tell your classroom story, remember that your joy and enthusiasm for what you are doing will encourage your students to connect to you and the story message. You will only get better at storytelling by practicing and try things out! Good luck!
Did you see Lucy's recent webinar 'The Magic of Reading: Using Stories to Promote Literacy and Learning'? If you missed it, you can watch the recording here.
Look out for the next blog posts on the following topics:

1. Connecting to your students through stories: How to tell a personal story using memorabilia and ways to involve your whole audience.

2. Setting the Story Stage: How to prepare your classroom for a wonderful storytelling session, and how storytelling warm-ups can help children concentrate and listen.

3. Creating a magical atmosphere for your classroom stories: How to use cloth to make simple story puppets come alive!

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Incorporating Stories into the Classroom

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One of the most powerful language experiences for a young child is to listen to a story. It can be a picture book, a personal story, an anecdote, a family joke, a whimsical poem, a song or an old fable. Whatever the style, we must remember that stories are like

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If you've already told stories in your classroom, you'll know just how magical it can be. However, you might have also experienced a session where the students couldn't concentrate properly or get engaged in the story you were trying to tell. Below, you'll find are a number of things that you can do to ensure that telling stories in your classroom will go smoothly. Like any well thought out lesson plan, you have to plan each step of a storytelling session too. Let's look at some way we can do this...

Lucy telling a captivating story

When children know what will happen, and understand how your storytime really works, the chances are the session will be wonderful and everyone will have something to gain from it. If you can establish a routine in your storytelling space, this will help children know what is expected of them. It's important to create an atmosphere of comfort and sharing where the children will feel safe and ready to listen and this starts with the classroom space itself.

Seating arrangements

Thinking about where and how your audience will sit is important. The closer they are, the deeper the feeling of intimacy and sharing will be.

Young learners are better off sitting in a semi-circle on the floor, while older children can sit on chairs or desks. Very young children are better sitting on a parent or caregiver's lap in case, for some reason, they need to leave the room.

It will be important that everyone is comfortable and away from school objects and other distractions.

Make sure anyone with special needs is carefully looked after, ex. larger chairs, space for a wheelchair, clear exits to doors and access to toilets, etc.

Interventions within the space

It's true that stories can be told anywhere; under a tree, in the classroom, on a bus, at bedtime, etc. but for a group of children listening to a story in another language, there are a few considerations we must think about.

When we take the time to make small changes to a classroom that the children are already very familiar with, it will make the story just that bit special, don't you think? Here are some things that I have used in my school that you might like to try...

Roll out a special storytelling carpet or piece of cloth for students to sit on that marks out a specific area of the classroom.

Darken the room and before you start the story, ceremoniously light a candle (if it's allowed), which you can blow out when the story ends, (I learned this at a Waldorf school).

Make a special doorway curtain

This is an idea that I have used many times to make my storytime special. It is also a way to separate the outside world of the classroom from the inside one. This gets the students excited and curious about what is going to happen in the lesson.

You will need a large piece of brown paper measured to the size of your classroom door frame. Write or draw whatever you think connects to the story that you are going to tell. It can be words from the story, the beginning sentence or an image or drawing of the characters for example. You can use both sides so that the students have a message as they come into the classroom or as they leave. Next cut the paper into strips so that it becomes a curtain that students can walk through. Finally, stick it onto the door frame before you start your class. This simple entrance will create a buzz of interest and add excitement to your session.

Story warm-ups

Now that your audience is in place, here are two simple story warm-ups, that you can use before you start telling your story to get the audience's attention and to draw them in.

Two Little Feet (a physical warm-up for your learners)

Two little feet go tap, tap, tap,

Two little hands go clap, clap, clap,

One little leap from behind the chair,

Two little hands reach high in the air.

Two little feet go jump, jump, jump,

Two little hands go thumb, thumb, thumb,

One little child turns round and round,

One little child sits quietly down.

Storytime Poem (A descriptive verse for primary students and teens)

Are you ready? Sit right down,

Ready for a story? Hear the sound,

Brave heroes, many dangers

Beasts and kings, old men, strangers.

Sit as close as close can be,

And listen shhhhhhhh..... to me.

I hope these simple tips will help you enjoy your storytelling session even more and encourage you to be the best storytelling teacher ever!
List of materials for this:

Large roll of paper 210cm X 80cm

Masking tape

Scissors

Colored markers, paints or crayons

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If you've already told stories in your classroom, you'll know just how magical it can be. However, you might have also experienced a session where the students couldn't concentrate properly or get engaged in the story you were trying to tell. Below, you'll find are a number of things that

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Body Language Expert Keynote Mark Bowden at TEDx Toronto — The Importance Of Being Inauthentic

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Body Language Expert Keynote Mark Bowden at TEDx Toronto — The Importance Of Being Inauthentic

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Body Language Expert Keynote Mark Bowden at TEDx Toronto — The Importance Of Being Inauthentic

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The Teachers' Room: Teaching word stress

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The Teachers' Room: Top tips about intonation

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The Teachers' Room: Top tips about intonation

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The Teachers' Room: Top tips about intonation

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7 Tips for Teaching English Intonation

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by Susan Verner 39,615 views

Well, maybe not stress about it but at least pay some attention to it. However, stress isn't something most teachers know how to talk about. That's why sentence stress may not get all the classroom attention it deserves, and it takes some patience and planning on the teacher's part to teach students how stress can change the meaning of English sentences. When you are ready to tackle stress in the classroom, here are some ideas to get you going.

HOWTO: 7 Tips for Teaching English Intonation

Explain it

Help your students understand that stressing different words in a sentence gives the sentence different meanings. You can do this by using a simple sentence and showing how stress can change the meaning. Start with the following sentence: You think I saw the monster. Discuss with your class what this sentence means. Then stress one word in the sentence at a time. As you do, talk about how the meaning of the sentence changed.
You think I saw the monster. (You are the one who thinks this is true.)
You think I saw the monster. (This is your belief, but you are not be correct in it.)
You think I saw the monster. (Maybe someone saw it, but it wasn't me.)
You think I saw the monster. (I did something with the monster, but I may not have seen it.)
You think I saw the monster. (I saw something, but it may not have been the monster.)

Teaching stress in English doesn't have to be stressful.

With some patience and practice, your students can begin to understand the subtleties of English stress and start using it in their own speaking.
At what level of English studies do you tackle the topic of stress in English?
P.S. If you enjoyed this article, please help spread it by clicking one of those sharing buttons below. And if you are interested in more, you should follow our Facebook page where we share more about creative, non-boring ways to teach English.

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Stress About It: 7 Tips for Teaching English Intonation

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by Susan Verner 39,615 views Well, maybe not stress about it but at least pay some attention to it. However, stress isn't something most teachers know how to talk about. That's why sentence stress may not get all the classroom attention it deserves, and it takes some patience and planning on the teacher's part to teach students how stress can change the meaning of English sentences.

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5 Effective Intonation Activities for Teaching English to Any Skill Level

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5 Effective Intonation Activities for Teaching English to Any Skill Level

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I once had a student who ended every sentence with a rising intonation.

When I would ask her how she was doing, she would respond, "I am well? Thanks?"

To be honest, before I started teaching her, intonation activities never crossed my mind. But her ability to turn everything into a question demonstrated to me just how important it is to teach intonation to English language learners.

The ability to communicate and the ability to be understood are the most important parts of learning a new language. As teachers, we understand this and spend countless hours running pronunciation and grammar exercises in the classroom. And while that's certainly important, it's not enough.

Students don't just need to learn what to say, they also need to learn how to say it. But sometimes it can be difficult to teach a topic like intonation, which can be very subtle and which just comes naturally to native speakers.

The activities in this post are designed to help you teach English intonation in an accessible and engaging way. No matter what level you're teaching, these activities are a gateway to more fluent-sounding speech among your students.

Why Should English Teachers Prioritize Intonation?

Whether you're teaching general ESL lessons or you're focusing specifically on conversational English, you should have the same goal: helping your students sound as natural as possible.

Intonation is a huge part of natural communication. The way we use pitch, stress and emphasis on specific words can completely change the meaning of a sentence.

If you don't believe me, say the sentence "she didn't steal my wallet" five times, placing the emphasis on a different word each time you say it.

As you can see, the sentence takes on a different meaning every time you stress a different word. For ESL students, this can become a problem if they use the wrong intonation and end up conveying the wrong message.

Imagine if one of your students tried to explain to a police officer that a woman didn't still his wallet, but ended up putting the stress on the word "wallet." Instead of telling the officer that the woman's innocent, the student actually implied that she stole something other than his wallet, which can lead to a confusing situation.

Isn't English delightfully complicated?

If you want your students to be fully prepared for communication with native speakers, it's essential to make them aware of intonation pitfalls and prepare them to say what they mean to say.

When teaching intonation, it's best to use activities that are fun and engaging. Stress and emphasis aren't things that most people can learn from studying through computer programs and textbooks.

Let's have a look at some interactive intonation activities that will help your students actively build their communication skills.

1. Video Warm-ups

Regardless of whether you're teaching intonation for the first time or you're simply reviewing material you covered last week, it's always a good idea to introduce a short warm-up that gets students thinking about the material.

The videos below don't just teach intonation in an engaging way, but they also have interactive elements that make them great for classroom warm-up activities.

If you're looking for a way to introduce intonation to your students, have a look at this YouTube channel. You can browse a number of different video clips covering intonation and pronunciation.

For classroom activities, have students follow along with Rachel's playlist of intonation videos, imitating her examples. Rachel also has mouth exercises that'll help them learn how to relax their tongues so that they don't become tired from speaking English.

This channel is great because it has many different intonation warm-up activities that help students learn how to listen for changes in pitch and speak in high and low pitches.

Most of Jill's videos can involve participation from students, whether it's saying sentences in a "sing-songy" manner or repeating various high and low-pitched sounds.

One of the best ways to teach correct English intonation is to show students authentic English speech in a variety of situations. FluentU is an innovative platform that helps you do that while also actively building students' language skills.
FluentU takes real-world videos-like music videos, cartoons, documentaries and more-and turns them into personalized language learning lessons for you and your students.

It's got a huge collection of authentic English videos that people in the English-speaking world actually watch on the regular. There are tons of great choices there when you're looking for videos for in-class activities.

You'll find movie trailers, musical numbers from cinema and theater, news interviews, commercial jingles and much, much more.

On FluentU, all the videos are sorted by skill level and are carefully annotated for students. Words come with example sentences and definitions. Students will be able to add them to their own vocabulary lists, and even see how the words are used in other videos.

For example, if a student taps on the word "brought," they'll see this:

Plus, these great videos are all accompanied by interactive features and active learning tools for students, like multimedia flashcards and fun games like "fill in the blank."

It's perfect for teaching intonation through in-class activities, group projects and solo homework assignments. Not to mention, it's guaranteed to get your students excited about English!

2. Stress Shifting

As we saw with the sample sentence "she didn't steal my wallet," it's possible to change the meaning of a sentence by putting stress on a specific word. Stress Shifting is a simple activity for introducing this concept to your class.

First, you'll need to collect a list of sample English sentences that your students will read aloud for intonation practice. "Perfect Phrases for ESL Conversation Skills" is a popular English phrasebook that you can use to pull sample sentences from. You could also use this list of 76 important English travel phrases as a jumping off point.

Once in class, write one of the sentences on the board and underline a word to stress. Have a student volunteer read the sentence. Then, erase the underline and move it to another word. Have a different student read the sentence.

Discuss how the intonation shifted, and how the meaning of the sentence changed accordingly. Rinse and repeat with the other sentences in your list.

If you have access to a language lab or recording devices, you can have your students record themselves saying each sentence with different words stressed. This creates a great opportunity for you to assess every student's intonation, and ensures that even your shyest students get in on the activity.

3. Inside Out

This exercise is a fun and effective way for students to practice English intonation. It will help students learn how intonation can be used to express emotions, feelings and attitudes in English.

For this activity, assign each student a specific emotion or feeling (such as "excitement," "fear," "sadness," "confusion" and so on, just like in the popular kids' movie "Inside Out") and have them communicate using the emphasis and pitch that reflects their feeling.

For beginner classes, you might want to create the sentences (or pull from the resources mentioned above) beforehand in order to save class time. But for your intermediate and advanced classes, feel free to have them come up with their own sentences that coincide with their assigned emotion.

4. Who Do You Think You're Talkin' To?

The way you speak to your boss is probably not the same way you'd speak to an annoying younger brother or sister. We speak differently to people depending on who they are and how we feel about them.

This is incredibly important for ESL students to know when learning English, so they don't go through life speaking sarcastically to everyone they encounter. This activity helps them get used to adjusting their intonation depending on their audience.

Put students in pairs and have them read sample sentences to each other. But when they read each sentence, change the dynamic by having them pretend they're speaking to a stranger, a close friend, a parent, someone they don't like and so on.

Listen as you walk around the class and pause, correct or discuss with students where necessary. At the end, gather students for a group discussion about the ways they modified their pitch and word stress depending on their audience.

5. Intonation Improv

This ESL roleplaying activity builds on the last one, with an opportunity for more advanced students to get extra English communication practice. It's also a nice way to help your more creative students shine.

Put your students in groups of two or three and give them a number of different scenarios, such as:

Meeting a friend for the first time in years

A couple breaking up

Arguing with a stranger

A doctor and a very sick patient

Every scenario has a different type of emotion that can be expressed through intonation. Reconnecting with a friend should have an intonation that demonstrates excitement or happiness, while arguing with someone would be sarcastic or angry.

You can let students discuss and prepare in groups and then perform one by one for the class, or simply call up volunteers to improvise together. Depending on your class' proficiency level, you may want to have some general lines written out that students can build off of.

Keep each role-play brief (just a couple of minutes) so that the focus stays on intonation. Afterwards, students can pose questions or discuss what they heard and how they might've changed their own intonation.

Remember that every language has its own rhythm and rules regarding intonation, so don't assume that your students will automatically understand English intonation the first time you teach it. But with these activities and a little bit of patience, your students will be able to better express themselves.

If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to teach English with real-world videos.
Bring English immersion to your classroom!

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5 Effective Intonation Activities for Teaching English to Any Skill Level

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I once had a student who ended every sentence with a rising intonation. When I would ask her how she was doing, she would respond, "I am well? Thanks?" To be honest, before I started teaching her, intonation activities never crossed my mind.

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Intonation in English - English Pronunciation Lesson

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Intonation in English - English Pronunciation Lesson

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Intonation in English - English Pronunciation Lesson

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21 Emotion Regulation Worksheets & Strategies

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21 Emotion Regulation Worksheets & Strategies

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As humans, we will never have complete control over what we feel, but we have a lot more influence over how we feel than you might have heard.

The skills that allow you to manage and direct your emotions are called emotion regulation skills (see self-regulation), and it doesn't take a pilgrimage to a holy site or thousands of dollars to learn these secrets to feeling better.

This article will see you learn about emotion regulation and help you develop and improve the skills necessary for staying balanced and emotionally stable.

Before you read on, we thought you might like to download our three Emotional Intelligence Exercises for free. These science-based exercises will not only enhance your ability to understand and regulate your emotions but will also give you the tools to foster the emotional intelligence of your clients, students or employees.

An Explanation of Emotion Regulation in Dialectical Behavior Therapy

Emotion regulation is one of the four skills modules of Dialectical Behavior Therapy or DBT. These four modules include:

1. Interpersonal effectiveness;

2. Distress tolerance/reality acceptance skills;

3. Emotion regulation;

4. Mindfulness skills.

The emotion regulation portion focuses on skills that benefit everyone who has emotions (i.e., every human!), but they are most beneficial for those struggling with mood or personality disorders, especially those with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

In this module, clients learn how to understand and accept their emotions, reduce their emotional vulnerability and volatility, and decrease their emotional suffering (Bray, 2013).

One of the most important aspects of treatment is recognizing that negative or painful emotions are not inherently bad. Clients are encouraged to accept that they will undoubtedly experience negative emotions in their life, no matter how happy or well-balanced they may be.

Instead of focusing on avoiding or denying the presence of the negative, DBT clients learn valuable skills to keep their emotions in check and avoid emotional dysregulation.

What Is Emotional Dysregulation?

If emotion regulation is the process of controlling one's emotions, keeping them in balance and away from extremes, then it's probably easy to figure out what emotional dysregulation is-the inability to control one's emotional responses.

Emotional dysregulation is a process with three main steps:

1. An internal or external event (thinking about something sad or encountering someone who is angry) provokes a subjective experience (emotion or feeling);

2. Then a cognitive response (thought) is followed by an emotion-related physiological response (for example, an increase in heart rate or hormonal secretion);

3. The process culminates in a behavior (avoidance, physical action, or expression; PCH Treatment Center, n.d.).

People who are struggling with emotional dysregulation react to relatively mild negative events in an emotionally exaggerated manner; they may cry, scream, accuse, or blame those around them, or engage in passive-aggressive behaviors or other behaviors that can disrupt relationships and escalate conflict (PCH Treatment Center, n.d.).

Recent research has proposed that emotional dysregulation, especially when present in those suffering from BPD, is made up of four components:

1. Emotion sensitivity;

2. Heightened and unstable mood or emotions;

3. A lack of appropriate emotion regulation strategies;

4. A plethora of maladaptive emotion regulation strategies (Carpenter & Trull, 2013).

DBT Self Help: 3 Emotion Regulation Questionnaires

There are a few different self-assessment tools available to learn about your own emotion regulation abilities. The three most popular and most evidence-backed scales are included below.

Emotion Regulation Questionnaire

The Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, or ERQ, is the most popular emotion regulation scale among psychology researchers. It was developed in 2003 by James Gross and John Oliver, based on five studies spanning the question development, validity and reliability, and structure of the questionnaire.

The scale is composed of 10 items, rated on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The scale covers two facets, the Cognitive Reappraisal facet and the Expressive Suppression facet, and produces a separate score for each facet.

The six items that make up the Cognitive Reappraisal facet are as follows:

When I want to feel more positive emotion (such as joy or amusement), I change what I'm thinking about;

When I want to feel less negative emotion (such as sadness or anger), I change what I'm thinking about;

When I'm faced with a stressful situation, I make myself think about it in a way that helps me stay calm;

When I want to feel more positive emotion, I change the way I'm thinking about the situation;

I control my emotions by changing the way I think about the situation I'm in;

When I want to feel less negative emotion, I change the way I'm thinking about the situation.

The four items that make up the Expressive Suppression facet include;

For more information on using this scale, click here.

Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Questionnaire

The Interpersonal Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, or IERQ, was developed to focus on the less attended interpersonal emotion regulation processes, rather than interpersonal processes. This scale was developed very recently (2016) by researchers Hofmann, Carpenter, and Curtiss.

It consists of 20 items and covers four factors, each containing five items rated on a scale from 1 (not true for me at all) to 5 (extremely true for me).

The four factors and their associated items are as follows:

This scale produces four scores, one for each subscale, and they are calculated by simply adding up the score for each item. Each subscale has a minimum score of 5 and a maximum score of 25.

Click here to learn more about the IERQ.

Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire

The Cognitive Emotion Regulation Questionnaire, or CERQ, is a scale for identifying the cognitive coping strategies used after a negative experience (Garnefski, Kraaij, & Spinhoven, 2001). It differs from other emotional regulation questionnaires in its focus on the individual's thoughts and exclusion of the behavior; it aims to find out what cognitive strategies the individual uses, rather than how they behave.

The scale is composed of 36 items rated on a scale from 1 ([almost] never) to 5 ([almost] always). It includes nine separate cognitive coping strategies, with four items comprising each strategy.

The nine strategies and an example item are included below:

Self-blame - I feel that I am the one who is responsible for what has happened;

Acceptance - I think that I have to accept that this has happened;

Rumination - I want to understand why I feel the way I do about what I have experienced;

Positive Refocusing - I think of pleasant things that have nothing to do with it;

Refocus on Planning - I think about how I can best cope with the situation;

Positive Reappraisal - I think that I can become a stronger person as a result of what has happened;

Putting into Perspective - I think that it hasn't been too bad compared to other things;

Catastrophizing - I often think that what I have experienced is much worse than what others have experienced;

Other-blame - I think about the mistakes others have made in this matter.

10 DBT Emotion Regulation Strategies & Techniques

One of the best things about DBT is its focus on practical, real-world skills and techniques.

In this form of therapy, you won't have to worry about vague ideas surrounding healing and moving forward; your therapist will have a detailed list of skills, strategies, and techniques you can use to start feeling and doing better.

A few of the best strategies and techniques are discussed below.

Understanding and Labelling Emotions

One of the most powerful tools in emotion regulation is simply identifying and naming the emotion you are feeling.

DBT encourages clients to use descriptive labels for their feelings rather than vague or general terms. The idea behind this skill is that to manage an emotion, you must first know what it is.

Clients of DBT will also learn about the difference between primary and secondary emotions, and how to address each in the most helpful way.

Primary emotions: the initial reaction to an event or to triggers in your environment.
Secondary emotions: the reaction to your primary emotions or thoughts (Bray, 2013).

Primary emotions are often completely natural reactions to things around us, like being sad when a loved one dies, or angry when someone is rude to us. However, secondary emotions are more dangerous and more within our control; we generally have more of a choice about how to respond to the fact that we are sad when someone dies.

Secondary emotions can push us towards behaviors that are destructive and maladaptive, making it essential to learn how to accept your primary emotion without judging yourself for feeling it.

In DBT sessions, you may also discuss myths surrounding emotions, such as the idea that there is a "right" and a "wrong" way to feel about certain events or situations. Our emotions are unique, organic experiences that cannot be molded to fit ideas of what is "normal," and to try can be harmful.

In fact, emotions are adaptive evolutionary traits-they developed because they helped us function better, both by helping us communicate with others and by alerting us to things in our environment that are beneficial or potentially problematic (Bray, 2013).

Learning to better understand, recognize, and label emotions is an enormously helpful skill to have, and not only will it give you a good foundation for managing your emotions, but it will also help you understand and empathize with others.

Mindfulness

Mindfulness can be described as living your life in the present instead of being stuck in the past or the future (Tartakovsky, 2015). Practicing mindfulness helps us become more aware of our thought patterns, our emotions, and how our thoughts and feelings affect our reactions to events.

There are two categories of mindfulness skills: "What" skills and "How" skills:

"What" skills:
o Observe;
o Describe;
o Participate.

"How" skills:
o Non-judgmentally;
o One-mindfully;
o Effectively (Dietz, 2012).

If you're interested in learning more about how to practice mindfulness, check out our post on mindfulness exercises and techniques here.

Letting Go of Painful Emotions

Perhaps the most important emotion regulation skill, learning to let go can be very difficult but is worth the effort you invest.

Humans have a tendency to become stuck when attempting to process negative emotions. Instead of simply letting them go, we often hold ever tighter to them, obsessing over every little bit of our emotional experience and wondering why it's happening to us.

It sounds paradoxical, but the act of accepting that we are feeling emotions we would rather not feel can be the key to letting go of them. When we accept that we are suffering, we stop running from the difficult emotions and turn to face them-and when we do, we might see that it wasn't the big bad monster we thought it was, but a smaller and more manageable beast.

Follow these steps to work on your ability to let go of negative emotions:

1. Observe your emotion. Acknowledge that it exists, stand back from it, and get yourself unstuck from it;

2. Try to experience your emotion as a wave, coming and going. You may find it helpful to concentrate on some part of the emotion, like how your body is feeling or some image about it. For example, you could use this imagery:

"Try to imagine an ocean wave flowing through you, but not so big that it knocks you over. Don't try to push the emotion away. This makes it bigger and increases our suffering. Don't reject the emotion. Don't judge your emotion. It is not good or bad. It is just there. There are no bad emotions, just emotions. Anger, fear, sadness are all painful emotions, but they are not bad.

Everyone has them, and they are just as valid as the happy emotions. At the same time, do not hang on to your emotion. Don't rehearse it over and over to yourself. Don't escalate it or make it bigger. Sometimes when we feel a very painful emotion, like anger or a deep grief, we hold on to it, or we intensify it, making it stronger and stronger, in our efforts to deal with it or to give it our full attention. Try not to do this. Just let it be however it is. This can result in a lessening of the pain."

3. Recognize that you are not your emotion. Your emotion is part of you, but it is not all of you. You are more than your emotion;

4. Do not necessarily act on the emotion; having the emotion does not mean that you have to act. You may just need to sit with the emotion. Often, acting can intensify and prolong the emotion;

5. Practice LOVING your emotions. This can be a difficult concept. Why would we want to love painful emotions?

We can learn to love our emotions just the way we can learn to love (accept) anything else about ourselves or our experience that we cannot change-our age, our height, freckles, the birds that sing early in the morning and wake us up, the weather, the size of our feet, allergies, etc.

Remember that acceptance (love) and approval are two different things. You don't have to like your freckles, but they are there and you can't change that, so if you just accept or love them, you will feel a lot better than if you keep fighting the idea that they are there (Dietz, 2012).

Emotion Regulation Tips for the Holidays

With the holidays coming up, you might be visiting with family you don't see in everyday life. These get-togethers can be great opportunities to reconnect with loved ones, but they can also be stressful and emotionally charged.

Follow these DBT self-help tips to get through your holiday visits with dignity and grace (Dietz, 2012).

Take Care of Your Body

To have a healthy mind, it's extremely helpful to start with a healthy body. Take care of yourself by eating healthy meals, exercising regularly, getting enough sleep, avoiding toxic or mood-altering substances, and treating any illnesses or issues that require treatment.

We don't make the best decisions when we are feeling sick, tired, or hungry, so eliminating these physical issues will make it easier for you to maintain your emotional balance.

Increasing Positive Emotions

Focus on increasing your positive emotions during the holiday season. You shouldn't ignore your negative emotions, but make sure to leave room for the positive as well.

Find Ways to Have Fun

This one is self-explanatory-give yourself permission and the opportunities to enjoy yourself during the holidays.

Work on Relationships

Holiday gatherings are a great opportunity to repair and restart relationships with friends that you haven't seen in a while. Leave yourself open to the possibility of renewing old friendships, as well as to forging new friendships.

Perhaps most important of all, commit to maintaining and strengthening your current relationships with family, friends, and anyone else you are likely to see on your holiday travels.

Be Present to and Mindful of the Positive

Focus on the good things that your holiday season has brought you, such as seeing an old friend, getting a present that you're really excited about, or attending a fun New Year's Eve party. Even if bad things happen, there's bound to be at least one or two positive things to savor.

Be Unmindful of Worries

While you're focusing on the positive, it will make the next suggestion easier to implement: putting your worries and insecurities aside. Crowd out the negative in your head with all the positive that you can find. Remind yourself that you deserve to have fun, to enjoy your time with friends, and to bask in the warmth of a loving family. Make room in your mind for the positive, and the negative will have less space to fill (Dietz, 2012).

STOPP

If you're struggling with controlling your emotions, consider how to STOPP (Vivyan, 2015).

STOPP is a strategy that will help you in the heat of the moment when you are dealing with intense emotions. It incorporates aspects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), DBT, and mindfulness meditation to help you more effectively address and manage your emotional response to a challenging, difficult, or rage-inducing incident.

STOPP stands for:

S - Stop!
o Just pause for a moment.

T - Take a Breath
o Notice your breathing as you breathe in and out.

O - Observe
o What thoughts are going through your mind right now?
o Where is your focus of attention?
o What are you reacting to?
o What sensations do you notice in your body?

P - Pull Back - Put in Some Perspective
o What's the bigger picture?
o Take the helicopter view;
o What is another way of looking at this situation?
o What would a trusted friend say to me right now?
o Is this thought a fact or an opinion?
o What is a more reasonable explanation?
o How important is this? How important will it be in 6 months' time?

P - Practice What Works - Proceed
o What is the best thing to do right now? For me? For others? For the situation?
o What can I do that fits with my values?
o Do what will be effective and appropriate (Vivyan, 2015).

If you learn only one skill that will help you to more effectively regulate your emotions, this should be the one you learn. Learning how to pause in between an intense emotional reaction and your ensuing actions is one of the most valuable and life-changing skills that a person can have. Practice STOPPing, and you will be in a great position to manage your most difficult emotions.

Differentiating Between Healthy and Unhealthy Emotion Regulation Activities

There are many techniques to help you steer your emotions in the right direction, or to maintain your positive mood and emotional balance.

There are also many techniques that on the surface seem like they will help you keep your emotional balance but upon further consideration reveal themselves to be unhealthy.

Different activities might work best for you, but these lists are a good start if you are unsure where to begin separating healthy from unhealthy activities.

Healthy activities that help you regulate your emotions include:

Talking with friends;

Exercising;

Writing in a journal;

Meditation;

Therapy;

Taking care of yourself when physically ill;

Getting adequate sleep;

Paying attention to negative thoughts that occur before or after strong emotions;

Noticing when you need a break-and taking it!

These activities are healthy because they not only contribute to better management of your emotions, they do not cause you any harm.

Unhealthy activities that may seem like they help, but actually hurt, include:

Abusing alcohol or other substances;

Self-injury;

Avoiding or withdrawing from difficult situations;

Physical or verbal aggression;

Excessive social media use, to the exclusion of other responsibilities (Rolston & Lloyd-Richardson, n.d.).

These activities tend to feel good and help in the moment, as well as provide a better strategy than "total avoidance" of situations that you inevitably will have to face.

When you are tempted to engage in an unhealthy activity, consider an activity that builds a sense of achievement instead. Try an activity that will result in you learning something new or developing a new skill, and allow yourself the space to build on it every day.

Doing something positive and fulfilling like this can not only increase your skills and boost your positive emotions but will also leave less room for negative emotions (Rolston & Lloyd-Richardson, n.d.).

8 Emotional Regulation Worksheets & Emotion Pictures

Aside from the strategies and techniques listed above, there are also several helpful handouts, worksheets, and even images that can aid you in developing your DBT skills and improving your emotion regulation.

Below are eight of the best worksheets, handouts, and emotion pictures available.

Practicing Radical Acceptance

This worksheet helps you to identify and understand a situation or emotion you are struggling to accept.

First, you identify your context; " What is the challenge or situation? "

Next, you describe the aspect of this situation that is difficult for you to accept.

Then you describe the reality of that situation.

After describing the reality, it asks you to think about the antecedents - or causes - that came before that reality (hint: many of them you will find to be outside of your control).

Next, you practice radical acceptance with your whole being (mentally, physically, and spiritually), describing how you achieved this. The worksheet encourages you to try the following:

Finally, you rate your ability to handle the distress of this difficult situation both before and after practicing radical acceptance, on a scale from 0 (you just can't take it) to 10 (total acceptance of reality).

Here's the free link to Practicing Radical Acceptance.

Interpersonal Effectiveness Skills
"Inhale deeply, settle into an accepting, open position. Become aware of your thoughts and emotions that struggle with your reality - then release them. Use acceptance techniques such as visualization, awareness exercises, or affirmations. Concentrate on a mantra of acceptance, such as "That's just how it is," or "All is the way it should be.'"
Interpersonal Skills Acronyms lists the DBT skills related to interpersonal effectiveness, including objective effectiveness, relationship effectiveness, and self-respect effectiveness, and also provides useful tips to put these skills into practice.

The section on objective effectiveness skills (DEAR MAN) outlines each skill and includes the following tips for building and using them:

Describe

Use clear and concrete terms to describe what you want;

Don't say: "Could you please clean?"

Do say: "Could you do the dishes before going to bed?"

Express

Let others know how a situation makes you feel by clearly expressing your feelings;

Don't expect others to read your mind;

Try using this line: "I feel ___ because ___."

Assert

Don't beat around the bush-say what you need to say;

Don't say: "Oh, well, I don't know if I can cook tonight or not;"

Do say: "I won't be able to cook because I'm working late."

Reinforce

Reward people who respond well, and reinforce why your desired outcome is positive;

This can be as simple as a smile and a "thank you."

Mindful

Don't forget the objective of the interaction;

It can be easy to get sidetracked into harmful arguments and lose focus.

Appear

Appear confident;

Consider your posture, tone, eye contact, and body language.

Negotiate

No one can have everything they want out of their interactions all the time;

Be open to negotiation;

Do say: "If you wash the dishes, I'll put them away."

Under the Relationship Effectiveness (GIVE) skills section, the handout lists the following:

Gentle

Don't attack, threaten, or express judgment during your interactions;

Accept the occasional "no" for your requests.

Interested

Show interest by listening to the other person without interrupting.

Validate

Be outwardly validating to the other person's thoughts and feelings;

Acknowledge their feelings, recognize when your requests are demanding, and respect their opinions.

Easy

Have an easy attitude;

Try to smile and act lighthearted.

Finally, these skills are listed under the Self-Respect Effectiveness (FAST) section:

Fair

Be fair; not only to others but also to yourself.

Apologies

Don't apologize unless it's warranted;

Don't apologize for making a request, having an opinion, or disagreeing.

Stick to Values

Don't compromise your values just to be liked or to get what you want;

Stand up for what you believe in.

Truthful

Avoid dishonesty such as exaggeration, acting helpless (as a form of manipulation), or outright lying.

It may be helpful to refer to this handout when you are faced with a situation in which you struggle to stick to your standards.

The quick reminder and helpful suggestions can make sure you get back on the right track.

Exploring Action Tendencies Worksheet

This worksheet can help you enhance your client's awareness of action tendencies that stem from their emotions - both positive and negative.

The activity helps you guide your client through two main steps, and a debrief for each.

Use Part One, a guided meditation, to help your client identify how they respond to their emotions. Briefly, you will:

Part Two takes your client through a similar guided meditation, but this time they will explore action tendencies that are related to a positive emotion instead. This allows you and your client to compare and contrast the two - how were they different? What did they notice about each?

This exercise can help your client connect the dots between a galvanizing event and the reaction they had to the event. Among other things, it can be particularly useful for clients who would like to target their impulsive tendencies or urges. The full Exploring Action Tendencies worksheet can be accessed in the Positive Psychology Toolkit©.

Skills for Regulating Emotions

This is another great handout for reminding yourself of the tools at your disposal to aid you in regulating your emotions.

The handout lists four skills that you can apply to improve your emotion regulation and provides suggestions on implementing these skills.

Opposite Action

The first skill is Opposite Action, which can help you stop an intense or highly charged emotion in its tracks.

Emotions often come with a specific behavior, like arguments following anger, or withdrawal resulting from sadness. However, we often assume the relationship is from the emotion to behavior, rather than the other way around.

Actually, it is possible to invoke an emotion by engaging in a behavior that is associated with that particular emotion.

Instead of doing what you would usually do when you are feeling a certain way, try doing the opposite action. If you're angry, try talking quietly instead of yelling. If you are sad, try chatting with friends instead of withdrawing from them.

Check the Facts

It can be easy to blow things out of proportion or place too much importance on your emotions.

This skill will help you to identify this scenario right when it's happening, and then help you reduce the intensity of the emotions.

Ask yourself the following questions to "check the facts":

1. What event triggered my emotion?

2. What interpretations or assumptions am I making about the event?

3. Does my emotion and its intensity match the facts of the situation? Or does it just match my assumptions of the situation?

P.L.E.A.S.E.

The P.LE.A.S.E. skill is another skill that acknowledges the link between body and brain. You will likely find it much easier to manage your emotions if you also manage your health and your body.

Remember to:

PL - Treat Physical Illness;

E - Eat Healthily;

A - Avoid Mood-Altering Drugs;

S - Sleep Well;

E - Exercise.

Follow these suggestions to keep your body healthy and happy, which makes it easier to keep your mind happy and healthy.

Pay Attention to Positive Events

Humans are surprisingly good at filtering out the positive and focusing on the negative. It's natural, but it's not helpful!

If you notice you are paying too much attention to the negative, pause and refocus onto the positive. You can practice by doing one small, positive activity every day, focusing on the good parts of the activity as you do it. Ignore minor issues and notice the enjoyment, pleasure, and fun!

Some small, positive activities include:

Positive Activities Include an Unrushed Meal. Image by Maggie Morrill from Pixaby.

Have a good, unrushed meal;

Watch a movie;

Visit with friends or family;

Visit a local attraction like a zoo or museum;

Go for a walk;

Put on headphones and do nothing but listen to music;

Have a picnic;

Give yourself a relaxing night in;

Try a new hobby.

This handout can be found online here.

Emotion Regulation Pictures

These fun and engaging pictures are best suited for children and adolescents, but there's no rule that adults can't benefit from them as well.

What Zone am I in?

This image uses familiar and easy to understand traffic signs to help the reader easily recognize his or her emotion, identify the "zone" they are in, and think about how to move to the green zone from any of the other zones.

The easy-to-identify symbols make understanding the zones simple for children, and intuitive for anyone who has paid attention to the world outside of their car!

The Rest Area/Blue Zone is where the individual is least energetic or purposeful and includes these emotions:

The Go/Green Zone (the place you want to be!) is the happy medium and represents positive emotions and a balance between extremes. These emotions fall into the Go/Green Zone:

In the Slow/Yellow Zone, things are getting a bit troubling. Emotions include:

Finally, the Stop/Red Zone is the most problematic, with emotions and behaviors like:

Once the child has identified their emotion and figured out which zone they are in, there is a handy list of suggestions to help them get into, or stay in, the Go/Green Zone, including:

Drink water;

Count to 10;

Take deep breaths;

Tense and release;

Do wall pushups;

Use fidgets;

Draw;

Write;

Talk to an adult;

Ask to take a break;

Self-talk;

Ask to take a walk;

Volcano breaths;

Do stretches;

Listen to music;

Lift something heavy;

Ask to eat a snack;

Think of a calm place.

This image included below is an excellent addition to any classroom, daycare, or other location where young children are likely to be.

This bonus image adds some more feelings to each zone, including:

How Are You Feeling?

(Image from http://boardmakeronline.com)

This image is another that would make a great poster for a classroom, especially with a laminate finish and an erasable marker for drawing expressions at the bottom.

It poses a fairly simple question: How are you feeling? If the reader is not sure how they are feeling, it can guide the reader in identifying his or her emotion.

Besides the titular "How are you feeling?" question, it also asks three follow-up questions:

1. What are you thinking about?

2. Do you know why you feel this way?

3. What do you wish would happen?

Next, it shows and describes 12 different emotions or feelings, including:

Good or great;

Okay;

Friendly;

Loving;

Energetic;

Hopeful;

Stressed;

Mad;

Confused;

Lonely;

Sad;

Shocked;

Feelings Keep Changing (you feel a lot of different ways at once, or your feelings keep changing).

Finally, it leaves room for the reader to draw a new emotion that they would like to feel, and give the emotion a label. This can be a fun activity for young children, and it encourages them to think about their emotions.

How Big is My Problem?

Although this image was developed with children in mind, it can be adapted to be a great guide for people of any age who need help in determining how big their problem is.

It can be all too easy to blow problems out of proportion, or "make mountains out of molehills." If you find yourself struggling with this a lot, this emotion picture may be able to help you.

It lists the five levels a problem can potentially be on, starting with the most serious and moving towards the least serious.

Level 5: Emergency - Tornado, fire, danger, serious injury
Potential emotions: Enraged, terrified, hysterical, angry

Level 4: Big Problem - Fighting, getting lost, someone gets hurt
Potential emotions: Upset, scared, mad, anxious

Level 3: Medium Problem - Minor accident, being disrespected, feeling sick
Potential emotions: Worried, frustrating, exhausted, hurt

Level 2: Little Problem - Forgetting homework, lost supplies, can't decide what to do
Potential emotions: Unhappy, disappointed, annoyed, embarrassed

Level 1: Glitch - Losing a game, not getting the supply you want, being late
Potential emotions: Okay, content, fine, calm

Use this handy guide to help children (or yourself!) to identify where the problem is, and decide how to best respond to the situation.

Traffic Light

The final image would be perfect for very young children, as it is based on a concept that is very easy to understand: a traffic light.

Print an image of a traffic light, and help the small children in your life determine the difference between "Green" emotions like happiness, contentment, and feeling at peace; "Yellow" emotions like boredom, irritation, and sadness, and; "Red" emotions like anger, grief, and shame.

Explain that we all experience a wide range of emotions, and it's okay to feel however they feel. However, it is best for them if they figure out how to keep their emotions within Green and sometimes Yellow while limiting the time they spend in Red.

Tell them there are many ways to do this. This can be an excellent lead-in for mindfulness practice or any other emotion regulation skill development!

A Take-Home Message

This piece first described emotion regulation, then emotion dysregulation, and then explored the ways in which you can move towards the former from the latter.

I hope you found this information enlightening and useful, and I hope you get some good use out of the resources collected here.

Have you ever worked on your emotion regulation skills? What techniques did you use? Would you use any of these techniques? Let us know in the comments section below.

Thanks for reading, and see you next time!

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don't forget to download our three Emotional Intelligence Exercises for free.

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21 Emotion Regulation Worksheets & Strategies

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Learn about emotion regulation in dialectical behavior therapy. Enhance your DBT skills with strategies & worksheets for emotional regulation.

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33 Skills and Techniques to Improve Self-Regulation

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33 Skills and Techniques to Improve Self-Regulation

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Why don't adults always do exactly what we feel like doing, when we feel like doing it?

This is a question that you might hear from kids, and it perfectly encapsulates what baffles them about adults.

As adults, we pretty much have free rein to do whatever we want, whenever we want. The vast majority of us won't get arrested for not showing up to work, and no one will haul us off to prison for eating cake for breakfast.

So, why do we show up for work? Why don't we eat cake for breakfast?

Perhaps the better question is, how do we keep ourselves from shirking work when we don't want to go? How do we refrain from eating cake for breakfast and eating healthy, less-delicious food instead?

The answer is self-regulation. It's a vital skill, but it's also something we generally do without much thought.

If you want to learn more about what self-regulation is, how we make the decisions we make, and why we are more susceptible to temptation at certain moments, read on. We also provide plenty of resources for teaching self-regulation skills to both children and adults.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Self-Compassion Exercises for free. These detailed, science-based exercises will not only help you increase the compassion and kindness you show yourself but will also give you the tools to help your clients, students, or employees show more compassion to themselves.

What Is Self-Regulation?

Andrea Bell from GoodTherapy.org has a straightforward definition of self-regulation: It's "control [of oneself] by oneself" (2016).

Self-control can be used by a wide range of organisms and organizations, but for our purposes, we'll focus on the psychological concept of self-regulation.

As Bell also notes:

"Someone who has good emotional self-regulation has the ability to keep their emotions in check. They can resist impulsive behaviors that might worsen their situation, and they can cheer themselves up when they're feeling down. They have a flexible range of emotional and behavioral responses that are well matched to the demands of their environment"

(2016).

The goal of most types of therapy is to improve an individual's ability to self-regulate and to gain (or regain) a sense of control over one's behavior and life. Psychologists might be referring to one of two things when they use the term "self-regulation": behavioral self-regulation or emotional self-regulation. We'll explore the difference between the two below.

What Is Behavioral Self-Regulation?

Behavioral self-regulation is "the ability to act in your long-term best interest, consistent with your deepest values" (Stosny, 2011). It is what allows us to feel one way but act another.

If you've ever dreaded getting up and going to work in the morning but convinced yourself to do it anyway after remembering your goals (e.g., a raise, a promotion) or your basic needs (e.g., food, shelter), you displayed effective behavioral self-regulation.

What Is Emotional Self-Regulation?

On the other hand, emotional self-regulation involves control of-or, at least, influence over-your emotions.

If you had ever talked yourself out of a bad mood or calmed yourself down when you were angry, you were displaying effective emotional self-regulation.

What is Self-Regulation Theory?

Self-regulation theory (SRT) simply outlines the process and components involved when we decide what to think, feel, say, and do. It is particularly salient in the context of making a healthy choice when we have a strong desire to do the opposite (e.g., refraining from eating an entire pizza just because it tastes good).

According to modern SRT expert Roy Baumeister, there are four components involved (2007):

1. Standards of desirable behavior;

2. Motivation to meet standards;

3. Monitoring of situations and thoughts that precede breaking standards;

4. allowing one's internal strength to control urges.

These four components interact to determine our self-regulatory activity at any given moment. According to SRT, our behavior is determined by our personal standards of good behavior, our motivation to meet those standards, the degree to which we are consciously aware of our circumstances and our actions, and the extent of our willpower to resist temptations and choose the best path.

The Psychology of Self-Regulation

According to Albert Bandura, an expert on self-efficacy and a leading researcher of SRT, self-regulation is a continuously active process in which we:

Bandura also notes that self-efficacy plays a significant role in this process, exerting its influence on our thoughts, feelings, motivations, and actions.

A quick thought experiment can show the significance of self-efficacy:

Imagine two people who are highly motivated to lose weight. They are both actively monitoring their food intake and their exercise, and they have specific, measurable goals that they have set for themselves.

One of them has high self-efficacy and believes he can lose weight if he puts in the effort to do so. The other has low self-efficacy and feels that there's no way he can hold to his prescribed weight loss plan.

Who do you think will be better able to say no to second helpings and decadent desserts? Which of them do you think will be more successful in getting up early to exercise each morning?

We can say with reasonable certainty that the man with higher self-efficacy is likely to be more effective, even if both men start with the exact same standards, motivation, monitoring, and willpower.

Barry Zimmerman, another big name in SRT research, put forth his own theory founded on self-regulation: self-regulated learning theory.

We explore this further in The Science of Self-Acceptance Masterclass©.

What is Self-Regulated Learning?

Self-regulated learning (SRL) refers to the process a student engages in when she takes responsibility for her own learning and applies herself to academic success (Zimmerman, 2002).

This process happens in three steps:

When students take initiative and regulate their own learning, they gain deeper insights into how they learn, what works best for them, and, ultimately, they perform at a higher level. This improvement springs from the many opportunities to learn during each phase:

The Self-Regulatory Model

It can be useful to consider the self-regulatory model to better understand SRT.

While the model is specific to health- and illness-related (rather than emotional) self-regulation, it is still a good representation of the complex processes at work during self-regulation of any kind.

The figure to the right shows how the model works:

1. Stimuli are presented (i.e., something happens that provokes a reaction, whether it's a thought, something another person said, receiving significant news, etc.);

2. The individual makes sense of the stimuli, both cognitively (understanding it) and emotionally (feeling it);

3. The sense-making leads the individual to choose coping responses (i.e., what the person does to influence her feelings about the stimuli or the actions she takes to address the stimuli);

4. The sense-making and coping responses determine the outcomes (i.e., the individual's overall response and how she chooses to behave);

5. The individual evaluates her coping responses in light of these outcomes and determines whether to continue using the same coping responses or to alter her formula.

An Example of the Model in Action

If words like "stimuli" and "emotional representations" throw you off, perhaps an example of the model in action will help.

Let's use Bob as our example.

Bob was just diagnosed with diabetes and is facing his new reality: having to check his blood sugar regularly, changing his diet, and getting comfortable with needles. The diagnosis is Bob's stimulus.

Bob attempts to make sense of his diagnosis. He talks to his doctor, recalls a friend's experience with diabetes, thinks about a character's struggle with diabetes on his favorite TV show, and tries to remember what he learned about diabetes in his college health classes. All of this information feeds into his cognitive representation of his diagnosis.

It's not all objective thoughts, though. Bob also feels a little shocked about getting this diagnosis since he hadn't even considered that he might have diabetes. He is worried about how long he'll be around for his kids and is anxious about how much his life will change. He's also scared about what will happen if he doesn't change his life. These feelings make up his emotional representation of his diagnosis.

Once Bob has a semi-firm grasp of his thoughts and feelings about the diagnosis, he makes some decisions about what comes next. Through discussions with his doctor, he decides to start a new, healthier diet and commits to taking frequent walks. However, he also finds that it's easy to put his diagnosis out of his mind when he's not having an episode or being directly affected by it.

These decisions and actions are his coping responses.

Bob implements these responses for a few days, then reflects on how he's been doing. He realizes that, although he is eating marginally healthier and he's taken a short walk each day, he has mostly refrained from thinking about his diagnosis at all.

Bob reminds himself that if he keeps ignoring his diabetes, he will eventually get sick and may even suffer significant, long-term consequences. This is his evaluation of his representations and coping methods.

Bob commits to facing his diabetes head-on instead of denying it and resolves to work on remembering the potential consequences of not staying healthy. He also resolves to embrace fully the diet he and his doctor planned out and to start going to the gym three times a week.

Bob is using his evaluation of his representations, coping responses, and outcomes to assess how well his actions align with his desired future: a happy and healthy Bob who is around to see his kids grow up. This is the feedback loop.

This example is a good representation of what self-regulation looks like. Essentially, it's the process of monitoring your own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors; comparing the outcomes against your goals; then deciding whether to maintain your current attitudes and behaviors or to adjust them in order to meet your goals more effectively.

What is Self-Regulation Therapy?

As noted earlier, you could argue that all forms of therapy are centered on self-regulation-they all aim to help clients reach levels of equilibrium in which they are able to effectively regulate their own emotions and behaviors (and, sometimes, thought patterns, in the case of therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness-based cognitive therapy).

However, there is also a form of therapy that is specifically designed with self-regulation theory and its principles in mind. Self-regulation therapy draws from research findings in neuroscience and biology to help clients reduce "excess activation in the nervous system" (Canadian Foundation for Trauma Research & Education, n.d.).

This excess activation (i.e., an off-balance or inappropriate fight-or-flight response) can be triggered by a traumatic incident or any life event that is significant or overwhelming.

Self-regulation therapy aims to help the client correct this problem, building new pathways in the brain that allow for more flexibility and more appropriate emotional and behavioral responses. The ultimate goal is to turn emotional and/or behavioral dysregulation into effective self-regulation.

Self-Regulation Versus Self-Control

If you're thinking that self-regulation and self-control have an awful lot in common, you're correct. They are similar concepts and they deal with some of the same processes. However, they are two distinct constructs.

As psychologist Stuart Shanker (2016) put it:

"Self-control is about inhibiting strong impulses; self-regulation [is about] reducing the frequency and intensity of strong impulses by managing stress-load and recovery. In fact, self-regulation is what makes self-control possible, or, in many cases, unnecessary."

Viewed in this light, we can think about self-regulation as a more automatic and subconscious process (unless the individual determines to purposefully monitor or alter his or her self-regulation), while self-control is a set of active and purposeful decisions and behaviors.

Understanding Ego Depletion

An important SRT concept is that of self-regulatory depletion, also called ego depletion.

This is a state in which an individual's willpower and control over self-regulation processes have been used up, and the energy earmarked for inhibiting impulses has been expended. It often results in poor decision-making and performance (Baumeister, 2014).

When a person has been faced with many temptations (especially strong temptations), he or she must exert an equally powerful amount of energy when it comes to controlling impulses. SRT argues that people have a limited amount of energy for this purpose, and once it's gone, two things happen:

1. Inhibitions and behavioral restraints are weaker, meaning that the individual has less motivation and willpower to refrain from the temptations;

2. The temptations, desires, or urges are felt much more strongly than when willpower is at a normal, non-depleted level (Baumeister, 2014).

This is a key idea in SRT. It explains why we struggle to avoid engaging in "bad behavior" when we are tempted by it over a long period of time. For example, it explains why many dieters can keep to their strict diet all day but once dinner's over they will give in when tempted by dessert.

It also explains why a married or otherwise committed person can rebuff an advance from someone who is not their partner for days or weeks but might eventually give in and have an affair.

Recent neuroscience research supports this idea of self-regulatory depletion. A study from 2013 by Wagner and colleagues used functional neuroimaging to show that people who had depleted their self-regulatory energy experienced less connectivity between the regions of the brain involved in self-control and rewards.

In other words, their brains were less accommodating in helping them resist temptation after sustained self-regulatory activity.

5 Examples of Self-Regulatory Behavior

Although self-regulatory depletion is a difficult hurdle, SRT does not imply that it is impossible to remain in control of your urges and behavior when your energy is depleted. It merely states that it becomes harder and harder as your energy level decreases.

However, there are many examples of successful self-regulatory behavior, even when the individual is fatigued from constant self-regulation.

Examples include:

A cashier who stays polite and calm when an angry customer is berating him for something he has no control over;

A child who refrains from throwing a tantrum when she is told she cannot have the toy she desperately wants;

A couple who's in a heated argument about something that is important to both of them deciding to take some time to cool off before continuing their discussion, instead of devolving into yelling and name-calling;

A student who is tempted to join her friends for a fun night out but instead decides to stay in to study for tomorrow's exam;

A man trying to lose weight meets a friend at a restaurant and sticks with the "healthy options" menu instead of ordering one of his favorite high-calorie dishes.

As you can see, self-regulation covers a wide range of behaviors from the minute-to-minute choices to the larger, more significant decisions that can have a significant impact on whether we meet our goals.

Why Self-Regulation Is Important for Wellbeing

Let's take a closer look at how self-regulation helps us in enhancing and maintaining a healthy sense of wellbeing.

Overall, there's tons of evidence suggesting that those who successfully display self-regulation in their everyday behavior enjoy greater wellbeing. Researchers Skowron, Holmes, and Sabatelli (2003) found that greater self-regulation was positively correlated with wellbeing for both men and women.

The findings are similar in studies of young people. A study from 2016 showed that adolescents who regularly engage in self-regulatory behavior report greater wellbeing than their peers, including enhanced life satisfaction, perceived social support, and positive affect (i.e., good feelings) (Verzeletti, Zammuner, Galli, Agnoli, & Duregger).

On the other hand, those who suppressed their feelings instead of addressing them head-on experienced lower wellbeing, including greater loneliness, more negative affect (i.e., bad feelings), and worse psychological health overall (Verzeletti, Zammuner, Galli, Agnoli, & Duregger, 2016).

Emotional Intelligence and Wellbeing

To get more specific, one of the ways in which self-regulation contributes to wellbeing is through emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence can be described as:

"The ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth"

(Mayer & Salovey, 1997).

According to emotional intelligence expert Daniel Goleman, there are five components of emotional intelligence:

Self-regulation, or the extent of an individual's ability to influence or control his or her own emotions and impulses, is a vital piece of emotional intelligence, and it's easy to see why: Can you imagine someone with high levels of self-awareness, intrinsic motivation, empathy, and social skills who inexplicably has little to no control over his or her own impulses and is driven by uninhibited emotion?

There's something off about that picture because of self-regulation's important role in emotional intelligence. And, as researchers Di Fabio and Kenny found, emotional intelligence is strongly related to wellbeing (2016).

The better we are at understanding and addressing our emotions and the emotions of others, the better we are at making sense of our environments, adjusting to them, and pursuing our goals.

Self-Regulation and the Motivation to Succeed

Speaking of pursuing our goals, self-regulation is also entwined with motivation. As stated earlier in this article, motivation is one of the core components of self-regulation; it is one factor that determines how well we are able to regulate our emotions and behaviors.

An individual's level of motivation to succeed in his endeavors is directly related to his performance. Even if he has the best of intentions, well-laid plans, and extraordinary willpower, he will likely fail if he is not motivated to regulate his behavior and avoid the temptation to slack off or set his goals aside for another day.

The more motivated we are to achieve our goals, the more capable we are to strive toward them. This impacts our wellbeing by filling us with a sense of purpose, competence, and self-esteem, especially when we are able to meet our goals.

Self-Regulation in ADHD and Autism

As you might have guessed, self-regulation is also an important topic for those struggling with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or autism spectrum disorders (ASD).

One of the hallmarks of ADHD is a limited ability to focus and regulate one's attention. For example, ADDitude's Penny Williams (n.d.) describes her 11-year-old son Ricochet's struggles with ADHD in terms of the struggle to self-regulate:

"At times, he has struggled with identifying his feelings. He is overwhelmed with emotion sometimes, and he has trouble labeling his feelings. You can't deal with what you can't define, so this often creates a troublesome situation for him and me. Now that Ricochet is old enough to start regulating his reactions, one of our current behavior goals is identifying, communicating, and regulating feelings and actions."

Similarly, difficulty with emotional self-regulation is part and parcel of ASD. Those on the autism spectrum often have trouble identifying their emotions. Even if they are able to identify their emotions, they generally have trouble modulating or regulating their emotions.

Difficulty with self-regulation is well-understood as a common symptom of ASD, but effective methods for improving self-regulation in ASD is unfortunately not as well-known or regularly implemented as one might wish.

The nonprofit advocacy group Autism Speaks suggests several strategies for helping children with autism to learn how to self-regulate. Many of these strategies can also be applied to children with ADHD, including:

Celebrate and build your child's strengths and successes;

Respect and listen to your child;

Validate your child's concerns and emotions;

Provide clear expectations of behavior (using visual aids if necessary);

Set your child up for success (e.g., accepting a one-word answer, providing accommodations, using Velcro instead of shoelaces);

Ignore the challenging behavior, like screaming or biting;

Alternate tasks; do something fun, then something challenging;

Teach and interact at your child's current level rather than at what level you want him or her to be;

Give your child choices within strict parameters (e.g., allowing the child to choose what activity to do first);

Provide access to breaks when needed-this will give him or her an opportunity to avoid bad behavior;

Promote the use of a safe calm-down place as a positive place, not a place of punishment;

Set up reinforcement systems to reward your child for desired behavior;

Allow times and places for your child to do what he or she wants (when not an inconvenience or intrusion for anyone else);

Reward flexibility and self-control, verbally and with tangible rewards;

Use positive/proactive language to encourage good behavior rather than pointing out bad behavior (2012).

Helping your child learn to self-regulate more effectively will ultimately benefit you, your child, and everyone he or she interacts with and will improve his or her overall wellbeing.

The Art of Mindfulness

Mindfulness can be defined as the conscious effort to maintain a moment-to-moment awareness of what's going on, both inside your head and around you. Mindfulness and self-regulation are a powerful combination for contributing to wellbeing.

As we learned earlier, self-regulation requires self-awareness and monitoring of one's own emotional state and responses to stimuli. Being conscious of your own thoughts, feelings, and behavior is the foundation of self-regulation: Without it, there is no ability to reflect or choose a different path.

Teaching mindfulness is a great way to improve one's ability to self-regulate and to enhance overall well-being. Mindfulness encourages active awareness of one's own thoughts and feelings and promotes conscious decisions about how to behave over simply going along with whatever your feelings tell you.

There is good evidence that mindfulness is an effective tool for teaching self-regulation. Researchers Razza, Bergen-Cico, and Raymond recently published a study on the effects of mindfulness-based yoga intervention in preschool children (2015).

The researchers found that those in the mindfulness group exhibited greater attention, better ability to delay gratification and more effective inhibitory control than those in the control group.

Findings also suggested that those with the most trouble self-regulating benefited the most from the mindfulness intervention, indicating that those at the lower end of the self-regulation continuum are not a "lost cause."

Self-Regulation and Executive Function

Mindfulness is an excellent way to build certain attention skills, which are part of a larger set of vital skills that allow us to plan, focus, remember important things, and multitask more effectively.

These skills are known as executive function skills, and they involve three key types of brain functions:

These skills are not inherent but are learned and built over time. They are vital skills for navigating the world and they contribute to good decisionmaking.

When we are able to successfully navigate the world and make good choices, we set ourselves up to meet our goals and enjoy greater wellbeing.

Self-Regulation Test and Assessment

If you're interested in measuring your level of self-regulation (or using it in research), there are two solid options in terms of a self-monitoring scale and self-regulation questionnaire:

The Self-Regulation Questionnaire (SRQ) for adults (Brown, Miller, & Lawendowski, 1999);

The Preschool Self-Regulation Assessment (PSRA) for children (Smith-Donald, Raver, Hayes, & Richardson, 2007).

The SRQ is a 63-item assessment measured on a scale from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The items correspond to one of seven components:

1. Receiving relevant information;

2. Evaluating the information and comparing it to norms;

3. Triggering change;

4. Searching for options;

5. Formulating a plan;

6. Implementing the plan;

7. Assessing the plan's effectiveness.

If you're interested in learning more about this scale or using it in your own work, visit this website.

If you're more interested in working with young children on self-regulatory strategies, the PRSA will probably work best for you. It's described as a portable direct assessment of self-regulation in young children based on a set of structured tasks, including activities like:

To learn more about this assessment or to inquire about using it for your research, click here.

Early Childhood and Child Development

As noted earlier, the development of self-regulation begins very early on. As soon as children are able to access working memory, exhibit mental flexibility, and control their behavior, you can get started with helping them develop self-regulation.

How to Teach and Develop Self-Regulation in Toddlers

So, you're probably convinced that self-regulation in children is a good thing, but you might be wondering, Where do I begin?

If that captures your thought process, don't worry. We have some tips and suggestions to get you started.

Here's a good list of suggestions from Day2Day Parenting for supporting the self-regulation of very young children (e.g., toddlers and preschoolers):

Provide a structured and predictable daily routine and schedule;

Change the environment by eliminating distractions: turn off the tv, dim lights, or provide a soothing object (like a teddy bear or a photo of the child's parent[s]) when you sense a child is becoming upset;

Roleplay with the child to practice how to act or what to say in certain situations;

Teach and talk about feelings and review home/classroom rules regularly;

Allow children to let off steam by creating a quiet corner with a small tent or pile of pillows;

Encourage pretend play scenarios among preschoolers;

Stay calm and firm in your voice and actions even when a child is "out of control";

Anticipate transitions and provide ample warning to the child or use picture schedules or a timer to warn of transitions;

Redirect inappropriate words or actions when needed;

In the classroom or at playgroups, pair children with limited self-regulatory skills with those who have good self-regulatory skills as a peer model;

Take a break yourself when needed, as children with limited self-regulatory skills can test an adult's patience (Thrive Place, 2013).

15 Activities and Games for Kindergarten and Preschool Children

You can also use games and activities to help young children build their self-regulation skills.

Check out the resources listed below for some fun and creative ideas for kindergarten and preschool children.

Classic Games

We titled these the "classic games" because they are popular, well-known games that you are probably already familiar with. Luckily, they can also be used to help your child develop self-regulation.

If you haven't already, give these a try:

Some further suggestions come from the Your Therapy Source website (2017):

Red Light, Green Light: Kids move after "green light" is called and freeze when "red light" is called. If a kid is caught moving during a red light, they're out;

Mother May I: One child is the leader. The rest of the children ask: "Mother may I take [a certain number of steps, hops, jumps, or leaps to get to the leader]? The leader approves or disapproves of the action. The first child to touch the leader wins;

Freeze Dance: Turn on music. When the music stops, the children have to freeze;

Follow My Clap: The leader creates a clapping pattern. Children have to listen and repeat the pattern;

Loud or Quiet: Children have to perform an action that is either loud or quiet. First, pick an action, i.e., stomping feet. The leader says "loud," and the children stomp their feet loudly.

Simon Says: Children perform an action as instructed by the leader, but only if the leader starts with, "Simon says . . ." For example, if the leader says, "Simon says touch your toes," then all the children should touch their toes. If the leader only says, "Touch your toes," no one should touch their toes because Simon didn't say so;

Body Part Mix-Up: The leader will call out body parts for the children to touch. For example, the leader might call out "knees," and the children touch their knees. Create one rule to start; for example, each time the leader says "head" the kids will touch their toes instead of their heads. This requires the children to stop and think about their actions and not just to react. The leader calls out "knees, head, elbow." The children should touch their knees, toes, and elbow. Continue practicing and adding other rules that change body parts;

Follow the Leader: The leader performs different actions and the children have to follow those actions exactly;

Ready, Set, Wiggle: If the leader calls out, "Ready . . . Set . . . Wiggle," everyone should wiggle their bodies. If the leader calls out, "Ready . . . Set . . . Watermelon," no one should move. If the leader calls out, "Ready . . . Set . . . Wigs," no one should move. The game continues like this. You can change the commands to whatever wording you want. The purpose is to have the children waiting to move until a certain word is said out loud;

Color Moves: Explain to the children that they will walk around the room. They'll move based on the color of the paper you are holding up. Green paper means walk fast, yellow paper means regular pace, and blue paper means slow-motion walking. Whenever you hold up a red paper, they stop. Try different locomotor skills like running in place, marching, or jumping.

Another list from The Inspired Treehouse includes good suggestions for other games you can play to calm an emotional or overwhelmed child when you're on an outing. You can find that list here.

Self-Regulation in Adolescence

As your child grows, you will probably find it harder to encourage continuing self-regulation skills. However, adolescence is a vital time for further development of these skills, particularly for:

Persisting on complex, long-term projects (e.g., applying to college);

Problem-solving to achieve goals (e.g., managing work and staying in school);

Delaying gratification to achieve goals (e.g., saving money to buy a car);

Self-monitoring and self- rewarding progress on goals;

Guiding behavior based on future goals and concern for others;

Making decisions with a broad perspective and compassion for oneself and others;

Managing frustration and distress effectively;

Seeking help when stress is unmanageable or the situation is dangerous (Murray & Rosenbalm, 2017).

To ensure that you are supporting adolescents in developing these vital skills, there are three important steps you can take:

The Role of Self-Regulation in Education

This leads to an important point: Children reach another significant stage of self-regulation development when they begin attending school-and self-regulation is tested as school gets more challenging.

This is where Zimmerman's self-regulated learning theory comes into play again. Recall that there are three times when self-regulation can aid the learning process:

Zimmerman encourages teachers to do the following three things to help students continue to develop self-regulation:

Give students a choice in tasks, methods, or study partners as often as you can;

Give students the opportunity to assess their own work and learn from their mistakes;

Pay attention to the student's beliefs about his or her own learning abilities and respond with encouragement and support when necessary (2002).

Strategies, Exercises, and Lesson Plans for Students in the Classroom

If you're a teacher who is interested in implementing more techniques and strategies for encouraging self-regulation in your classroom, consider the resources and methods outlined below.

McGill Self-Regulation Lesson Plans

This resource from McGill University in Canada includes several helpful lesson plans for building self-regulatory skills in students, including lessons on:

Cognitive emotion regulation;

Acceptance;

Self-blame;

Positive refocusing;

Rumination;

Refocus of planning;

Catastrophizing;

Positive reappraisal;

Blaming others;

Putting things into perspective.

College & Career Competency Framework and Lessons

The self-regulation lesson plans from the College & Career Competency Framework detail nine separate lessons you can use to help your students continue to develop their skills. The lessons range in length from about 20 to 40 minutes and can be modified or adapted as needed.

The lessons include:

1. Define Self-Regulation;

2. Understand Your Ability to Self-Regulate by Taking the Questionnaire;

3. Make a Plan;

4. Practice Making a Plan;

5. Monitor Your Plan;

6. Make Changes;

7. Reflect;

8. Find Missing Components;

9. Practice Self-Regulation.

Click here to access and purchase the workbook containing the lessons. It includes the information you need to build effective strategies into your curriculum.

Finally, for a treasure trove of lesson plans, activities, and readings you can implement in your classroom, click here.

This resource comes from Scott Carchedi at the School Social Work Network, and includes a student manual and four lesson plans:

1. Lesson on emotional regulation: "How Hot or Cold Does Your Emotional 'Engine' Run?";

2. Lesson on self-calming methods: "Downshift to a Lower Gear, with Help From Your Body";

3. Lesson on reframing feelings before acting on them: "Slow Down and Look Around You";

4. Lesson on conflict resolution: "Find the Best Route to Your Destination" (2013).

For each lesson, you can access a lesson plan and student activity (or activities) via a Word document and a student reading via a PDF. Use these lessons to help your students boost their self-regulation skill development and adapt or modify them as needed.

Self-Regulation in Adults

Although much attention is paid to self-regulation in children and adolescents because that's when those skills are developing, it's also important to keep self-regulation in mind for adults.

Self-Regulation and Navigating the Workplace

For example, self-regulation is extremely important in the workplace. It's what keeps you from yelling at your boss when he's getting on your nerves, slapping a coworker who threw you under the bus, or from engaging in more benign but still socially unacceptable behaviors like falling asleep at your desk or stealing someone's lunch from the office fridge.

Those with high self-regulation skills are better able to navigate the workplace, which means they are better equipped to obtain and keep jobs and generally outperform their less-regulated peers.

To help you effectively manage your emotions at work (and build them up outside of work as well), try these tips:

1. Do breathing exercises (like mindful breathing);

2. Eat healthy, drink lots of water, and limit alcohol consumption;

3. Use self-hypnosis to reduce your stress level and remain calm;

4. Exercise regularly;

5. Sleep seven to eight hours a night;

6. Make time for fun outside of work;

7. Laugh more often;

8. Spend time alone;

9. Manage your work-life balance (Connelly, 2012).

These tips likely come off as very general, but it's true that living a generally healthy life is key to reducing your stress and reserving your energy for self-regulation.

For more specific tips on building your self-regulation skills, read on.

33 Skills and Techniques to Improve Self-Regulation

There are many tips you can use to enhance your self-regulation skills. If you want to give it a shot, read through these techniques and pick one that resonates with you-then try it out.

Mindfulness

Cultivating the skill of mindfulness will improve your ability to maintain your moment-to-moment awareness, which in turn helps you delay gratification and manage your emotions.

Research has shown that mindfulness is very effective at boosting one's conscious control over attention, helping people regulate negative emotions, and improving executive functioning (Cundic, 2018).

Cognitive Reappraisal

This strategy can be described as a conscious effort to change your thought patterns. This is one of the main goals of cognitive-based therapies (e.g., co gnitive-behavioral therapy or mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapy).

To build your cognitive reappraisal skills, you will need to work on changing and reframing your thoughts when you encounter a difficult situation. Adopting a more adaptive perspective to your situation will help you find a silver lining and help you manage emotion regulation and keep negative emotions at bay (Cundic, 2018).

Cognitive self-regulation has also been found to be positively correlated with social functioning. It involves the cognitive abilities we use to integrate different learning processes, which also help us support our personal goals.

8 Ways to Improve Self-Regulation

This list comes from the Mind Tools website but can also be found in this PDF from Course Hero. It outlines eight methods and strategies for building self-regulation:

1. Leading and living with integrity: being a good role model, practicing what you preach, creating trusting environments, and living in alignment with your values;

2. Being open to change: challenging yourself to deal with change in a straightforward and positive manner and working to improve your ability to adapt to different situations while staying positive;

3. Identifying your triggers: cultivating a sense of self-awareness that will help you learn what your strengths and weaknesses are and what can trigger you into a difficult state of mind;

4. Practicing self-discipline: committing to taking initiative and staying persistent in working toward your goals, even when it's the last thing you feel like doing;

5. Reframing negative thoughts: working on your ability to take a step back from your own thoughts and feelings, analyze them, and come up with positive alternative thoughts;

6. Keeping calm under pressure: keeping your cool by removing yourself from the situation for the short-term-whether mentally or physically-and using relaxation techniques like deep breathing;

7. Considering the consequences: stopping and thinking about the consequences of giving in to "bad" behavior (e.g., what happened in the past, what is likely to happen now, what this behavior could trigger in terms of longer-term consequences);

8. Believing in yourself: boosting your self-efficacy by working on your self-confidence, focusing on the experiences in your life when you succeeded and keeping your mistakes in perspective. Choose to believe in your own abilities and surround yourself with positive, supportive people.

Self-Regulation Strategies: Methods for Managing Myself

This table from Jan Johnson at Learning in Action Technologies lists 23 strategies we can use to self-regulate, both as an individual and as someone in a relationship.

The strategies are categorized into two groups: "Positive or Neutral" and "Negative or Neutral." Check out some examples in each column and think about where your most frequently used self-regulating learning strategies fall on the chart.

For example, in the upper-left quadrant ("Alone Focus, Positive or Neutral"), strategies include:

Consciously attend to breathing, relaxing;

Exercise;

Movement;

Awareness of body sensations;

Attending to care for my body, nutrition;

Meditation and prayer;

Self-expression: art, music, dance, writing, etc.;

Caring, nurturing self-talk;

Laughing, telling jokes;

Positive self-talk ("I can," "I'm sufficient" messages);

Go inside with intentional nurturing of self.

Under the "Relationship-Focus on Other, Positive or Neutral" category, strategies include:

Seeking dialogue and learning;

Playing with others;

Sharing humor;

Moving toward the relationship to learn (mutual inquiry);

Desire and/or movement toward collaboration;

Intentionally honoring or celebrating the other/calling attention to the other.

Finally, the strategies under the "Relationship - Focus on Self, Positive or Neutral" category include:

Acknowledging what I said or did and any truth in it;

Humor;

Moving toward the relationship to learn;

Desiring collaboration;

Inquiring about impact;

Intentionally honoring or celebrating me (throw myself a party).

To see the rest of these strategies, click here (Clicking the link will trigger a download of the PDF).

Activities and Worksheets for Training Self-Regulation (PDFs)

If you're a teacher, parent, or adult who works with children, this section offers some great resources for helping you and/or the children in your care develop greater self-regulation.

Self-Regulation in the Classroom

This worksheet is a handy tool that teachers can implement in the classroom. It can be used to help students assess their levels of self-regulation and find areas for improvement.

It lists 23 traits and tendencies that the students can say they do "Always," "Sometimes," or "Not So Much." For the full list, you can see the worksheet here, but below are some examples:

Participate in small and large group activities;

Complete work on time;

Remain on task;

Follow the classroom rules and routines;

Ask for help at appropriate times;

Wait for your turn;

Refrain from speaking out of turn.

Emotion Regulation Skills

This handout can be useful for both adults and older children and teens. It describes some of the main strategies and skills you can implement to keep emotions under control.

The handout covers four main strategies:

1. Opposite action: doing the opposite of what you feel like doing;

2. Check the facts: looking back over your experiences to learn the facts of what happened, like the event that triggered a reaction, any interpretations or assumptions made, and whether the response matched the intensity of the situation;

3. P.L.E.A.S.E.: This acronym stands for "treat physical illness (PL), eat healthy (E), avoid mood-altering drugs (A), sleep well (S), and exercise (E)." All of these behaviors will help you maintain control of your emotions;

4. Paying attention to positive events: keeping your focus on the positive aspects of an experience instead of the negative, trying to engage in a positive activity, and keeping yourself open to the good things.

You can download this handout here.

Handouts: Emotional Regulation, Social Sills, and Problem-Solving

This resource includes several worksheets and handouts you can use as a teacher, parent, or therapist with the children in your care.

It includes worksheets and handouts like Wally's Problem-Solving Steps, which helps children learn how to problem-solve, and Tiny's Anger Management Steps, which helps kids figure out how to deal with their anger.

It also includes helpful worksheets that teachers can use to enhance their ability to help students develop better self-regulation skills.

Click here to find out more.

Further Resources, Interventions, and Tools

If you're still hungry for more information on self-regulation, there are tons of resources available on the subject. Check out the sources listed below.

Self-Regulation Chart

Aside from the worksheets and handouts noted earlier, there are another handy tool to use with kids: the self-regulation chart.

This self-regulation chart is for parents and/or teachers to complete, but it is focused on the child. It lists 30 skills related to emotional regulation and instructs the adult to rate the child's performance in each area on a four-point scale that ranges from "Almost Always" to "Almost Never."

All of these skills are important to keep in mind, but the skills specific to self-regulation include:

Allows others to comfort him/her if upset or agitated;

Self-regulates when tense or upset;

Self-regulates when the energy level is high;

Deals with being teased in acceptable ways;

Deals with being left out of a group;

Accepts not being first at a game or activity;

Accepts losing at a game without becoming upset/angry;

Says "no" in an acceptable way to things he/she does not want to do;

Accepts being told "no" without becoming upset/angry;

Able to say "I don't know";

Able to end conversations appropriately.

You can find the self-regulation chart and checklist at this link.

The Zones of Self-Regulation

If you spend some time poking exploring self-regulation literature or talking to others about the topic, you're bound to run into mentions of The Zones of Regulation.

According to developer Leah Kuypers, The Zones of Regulation is a "systematic, cognitive-behavioral approach used to teach self-regulation by categorizing all the different ways we feel and states of alertness we experience into four concrete colored zones" (Kuypers, n.d.).

This book describes the Zones of Regulation curriculum, including lessons and activities you can use in the classroom, in your therapy office, or at home.

In this book, you will learn about the four zones:

Red Zone: extremely heightened states of alertness and intense emotions (e.g., rage, anger, devastation, terror);

Yellow Zone: heightened states of alertness and elevated emotions (e.g., silliness, stress, frustration, "the wiggles"), but with more control than the Red Zone;

Green Zone: calm states of alertness and regulated emotions (e.g., happy, focused, content, ready to learn);

Blue Zone: states of low alertness and down feelings (e.g., sad, sick, tired, bored).

In addition, reading the book will teach you how to apply the Zones model to help your children, students, or clients build their emotional regulation skills.

You can learn more about this book here.

Handbook of Self-Regulation: Research, Theory, and Applications

For a more academic look at self-regulation, you might want to give this handbook a try.

This volume from researchers Kathleen D. Vohs and Roy F. Baumeister offers a comprehensive look at the theory of self-regulation, the research behind it, and the ways it can be applied to improve quality of life. It also explains how self-regulation is developed and shaped by experiences, and how it both influences and is influenced by social relationships.

Chapters on self-dysregulation (e.g., addiction, overeating, compulsive spending, ADHD) explore what happens when self-regulation skills are not developed to an adequate level.

If you're a student, researcher, academic, a helping professional, or an aspiring helping professional, you won't regret investing your time and energy into reading this book and familiarizing yourself with this important topic.

Click here to see the book on Amazon.

A Take-Home Message

The skills involved in self-regulation are necessary for achieving success in life and reaching our most important goals. These skills can also have a major impact on overall wellbeing.

Self-regulation is truly an important topic for everyone to consider. However, it might be even more important for parents and educators to learn about it, since it is an important skill for children to develop.

What do you think of self-regulation theory? What are your strategies for boosting your own self-regulation? What about your strategies for building it in children?

Let us know in the comments section below. If you want to learn more about a similar topic, try reading this piece on posi tive mindsets.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don't forget to download our three Self Compassion Exercises for free.

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What is Self-Regulation? (+95 Skills and Strategies)

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Self-regulation theory encompasses the processes and components involved when we decide what to think, how to feel, and what to say and do.

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Free Speeches Audio Books, MP3 Downloads, and Videos. Browse our directory of free Speeches audio & video titles including free audio books, courses, talks, interviews, and more.

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20+Repeated PTE Read Aloud Practice Questions

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20+Repeated PTE Read Aloud Practice Questions

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PTE Read Aloud - Look at the text below. In 40 seconds, you must read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible. PTE Read Aloud is a long answer item type that integrates speaking and reading skills and requires test takers to read a short text aloud, using correct pronunciation and intonation.

This post contains 20+ read aloud questions including repeated, newly asked & some practice questions.

[Jan-Mar 2018] New PTE Read Aloud Questions

1. Domestication [ Domestication, Darwin, alliance]

Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.

Domestication is an evolutionary, rather than a political, development. It is certainly not a regime humans imposed on animals some 10,000 years ago. Rather, domestication happened when a small handful of especially opportunistic species discovered through Darwinian trial and error that they were more likely to survive and prosper in an alliance with humans than on their own.

2. Bicycle [sports, competitor, bike, flatter]

Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.

Road bicycle racing is the cycle sports discipline of road cycling, held on paved roads. Road racing is the most popular professional form of bicycle racing, in terms of numbers of competitors, event, and spectators. The two most common competition formats are mass start events, where riders start simultaneously and race to set finish point; and time trials, where individual riders or teams race a course alone against the clock.

3. Integration [business, environment, coordination, advantage]

Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.

Currently, integration is increasingly needed in the business environment. This need emerges from the efficiency and synergy requirements necessary in a complex and turbulent environment. In other words, integration is needed to facilitate coordination, which is again related to the building of competitive advantage.

4. Liverpool University [excellence, outstanding, universities]

Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.

Located at the heart of two world famous cities, Liverpool and London, Liverpool's excellence in teaching, learning and research, first-class facilities and outstanding support places the university in the top 1% of universities worldwide. The University of Liverpool will provide you with an inspiring student experience, in a diverse international community.

5. Tea Ceremony

Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.

Many non-Japanese know a thing or two about traditional tea ceremony, its history, intricacies and religious origins. However, few people outside Japan have a deep understanding of the esoteric meaning of the practice. Indeed, even in Japan, the secret meaning of tea ceremony is little understood except by those who have devoted their lives to the discipline.

6. Guinness World Records

Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.

According to Guinness World Records, the longest reticulated python in captivity is Medusa, who lives in Kansas City, US. She is 25ft. Natusch lists several species that are said to exceed the reticulated python record for length. These include the Australian scrub python, African rock python and probably the best known: the green anaconda.

SAMPLE RESPONSE

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Did You Know?
More than 90% PTE aspirants find PTE Read Aloud too simple and easy. Though it looks simple, it is full of mystery. Let's unlock this mystery then:

First, magical ingredient to unlocking this mystery is Pitch

Pitch refers to the high and low sounds of the voice. Next time you find yourself reading a text aloud, don't be flat instead change the pitch to match the characters. Read the full article .

Repeated PTE Read Aloud Practice Questions

7. Avalanche [Avalanche, gravity, debris]

Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.

Avalanche is rapidly descending large mass of snow, ice, soil, rock, or mixtures of these materials, sliding or falling in response to the force of gravity. Avalanches, which are natural forms of erosion and often seasonal, are usually classified by their content such as a debris or snow avalanche.

8. Akimbo

Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.

Akimbo, this must be one of the odder-looking words in the language. It puzzles us in part because it doesn't seem to have any relatives. What's more, it is now virtually a fossil word, until almost invariably found in arms Akimbo, a posture in which a person stands with hands on hips and elbows sharply bent outward, one that signals impatience and hostility.

9. Quotes

Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.

Many papers you write in college will require you to include quotes from one or more sources. Even if you don't have to do it, integrating a few quotes into your writing can add life and persuasiveness to your arguments. The key is to use quotes to support a point you're trying to make rather than just include them to fill space.

10. Soft Drink

Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.

The main production of soft drink was stored in 1830's & since then from those experimental beginning, there was an evolution until in 1781 when the worlds first cola-flavored beverage was introduced.These drinks were called soft drinks, only to separate them from hard alcoholic drinks. Today, soft drink is more favorite refreshment drink than tea, coffee, juice etc.

11. Student Debt

Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.

Since 2003, borrowing for education advanced faster, in percentage terms, than all other types of consumer debt that includes mortgages, auto loans and credit cards, data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York show. As of the fourth quarter, student loans represented 10.5 percent of a record $13.1 trillion in household debt, up from 3.3 percent at the start of 2003.

12. Recent Trend

Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.

The next wave of leaders in industrial manufacturing will build an ecosystem that capitalizes on the promise of analytics and connectivity to maximize efficiency for themselves and their customers. They will map out their strategies and prioritize measures that will bring the most value to their business, starting now with pilot projects, and building greater strengths in data analytics with cross-functional teams of experts.

13. Shakespeare

Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.

A young man from a small provincial town, a man without independent wealth, without powerful family confections and without a university education, moved to London in the late 1580's and, in a remarkably short time, because of the greatest playwright not of his age alone but of all time. How did Shakespeare become Shakespeare?

14. Plato

Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.

Plato often discusses the father-son relationship and the question of whether a father's interest in his sons has much to do with how well his sons turn out. In ancient Athens, a boy was socially located by his family identity, and Plato often refers to his characters in terms of their paternal and fraternal relationships. Socrates was not a family man and saw himself as the son of his mother, who was apparently a midwife.

15. University

Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.

During the Early Modern period, the universities of Europe would see a tremendous amount of growth, productivity, and innovative research. At the end of the Middle Ages, about 400 years after the first European university was founded, there were twenty-nine universities spread throughout Europe.

16. Flags

Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.

Flags can be unifying to a country, and many times are. A country that can look to its flag flown high above the landscape in times of trouble and remember that the country will go on. People that have never met before can feel unity towards one another knowing that they're part of the same country and fly the same flag.

More PTE Read Aloud practice samples:
17. Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.
Banksia scabrella, commonly known as the Burma Road banksia, is a species of woody shrub in the genus Banksia. It is classified in the series Abietinae, a group of several species of shrubs with small round or oval inflorescence. It occurs in a number of isolated populations south of Geraldton, Western Australia, with the largest population being south and east of Mount Adams.

SAMPLE RESPONSE

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18. Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.
The Bermuda Triangle is a mythical section of the Atlantic Ocean roughly bounded by Miami, Bermuda and Puerto Rico where dozens of ships and airplanes have disappeared. Unexplained circumstances surround some of these accidents, including one in which the pilots of a squadron of U.S. Navy bombers became disoriented while flying over the area; the planes were never found.

SAMPLE RESPONSE

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19. Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.
One of the most popular natural dandruff remedies, coconut oil can help reduce some of the yeast that contributes to flakes, explains Geeta Shah, MD, a Maryland-based dermatologist. She recommends massaging a small amount into your scalp and leaving it there for at least 15-20 minutes. "The longer the better," she says. "Some people even leave it on overnight with a towel or shower cap so it penetrates a little deeper."

SAMPLE RESPONSE

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20. Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.
The Earth just had the hottest month in recorded history, and it's even worse than normal. The record comes in a run of unprecedentedly hot months. Not only does it break through the all-time record set a year before, it also continues a now 10-month long streak of months that are the hottest ever according to NASA data. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration calculates temperatures slightly different.

SAMPLE RESPONSE

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21. Read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible.
Smartphones have become an everyday essential for millions of us - we rely on them for everything from updating our social media profiles to banking. Taking out a smartphone contract that bundles together your calls, data, and texts with the cost of the handset can help spread the cost - but can also mean you'll pay more over the long run.

SAMPLE RESPONSE

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20+Repeated PTE Read Aloud Practice Questions - PTE Speaking

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PTE Read Aloud - Look at the text below. In 40 seconds, you must read this text aloud as naturally and clearly as possible. PTE Read Aloud is a long answer item type that integrates speaking and reading skills and requires test takers to read a short text aloud, using correct pronunciation and intonation.

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Reading aloud encourages students to practice their oral and pronunciation skills. It's best for teachers to read the stories to the class just before and immediately after passing out the papers. Students can be paired or put in small groups to practice reading passages out loud to each other. Volunteers can demonstrate their skills by reading out loud in front of the class. Estimated lesson time: 20 minutes.

Speaking Exercises for Pair Practice
Anniversary Dinner - Mr. and Mrs. Wilson are celebrating their anniversary.

Apartments - Apartment buildings have many apartments. It is expensive to rent an apartment.

Apartment Hunting - Victor and his wife are looking to rent an apartment.

Birthday Cakes - Birthday cakes come in many flavors. They have candles on them.

Birthday Party Game - Here's how to play Pin the Tail on the Donkey.

Boats - It is relaxing to ride in a boat but some people get seasick.

Bookstores - Bookstores sell books. The books are on bookshelves or in bookcases.

Bus Stop - Kathy starts a new job today, but her bus is late.

Public Buses - Save money and take the public bus. It's easy to do.

Carpets - Carpet is sold by the square foot or square yard.

Checking Account - Mr. Nguyen is withdrawing $50 from his checking account.

Christmas Cookies - Sugar cookies are popular in December.

Community College - Two year colleges are more affordable than universities.

Computer Skills - After ESL students learn English, they might want to take computer classes.

Driver's Permit - Cathy's mom is teaching her how to drive a car.

Employment - Electricion - Employment - Hector goes to school to become an electrician.

Employment - Janitors - Michael is a janitor at a school.

Environment - Foam Cups - Foam cups are bad for the environment.

Environment - Recycling Cans and Bottles - Recycle cans and bottles and make money.

Family Tradition - Pizza night is a Friday family tradition for the Jackson family.

Father's Day Gifts - Gift suggestions for dad.

Flag Day - June 14 is Flag Day. People and businesses display the flag.

Football Fans - Football fans wear their favorite team's T-shirts and caps.

Funerals Are Sad - How to honor those who passed away by attending a funeral.

Garage Sale of Household Items - It's fun to have a garage sale and make money.

Gas Bill - Gas bills are usually higher during the winter.

Grocery Coupons - The Sunday newspaper has a many food coupons.

Halloween Story About Friendly Ghosts - Fun Halloween story about friendly ghosts.

Healthy Breakfast - Mr. and Mrs. Jones are on a diet.

Health - A Lost Hiker - A hiker goes for a hike and gets lost while following a beautiful bird.

Healthy Food - Florence prepares healthy meals for her children.

Holiday BBQ - Summer holidays are a great time to BBQ outside.

Holidays - Trick-or-Treating Read Aloud Short Story - Mai passes out candy to the kids on Halloween.

Homelessness - Should people give money to the homeless? Do you?

Housing - Paul Cuts the Grass - Paul is proud of his front yard.

Housing - A Two-Story House - Image and description of a two-story house with furniture.

Irons - Irons have four or more temperature settings.

Job Interview - Dora goes on a job interview to be a secretary.

Kindergarten - Children start kindergarten when they are five years old.

Kitchen Sinks - Call a plumber if your kitchen sink is leaking.

Laptop Computers - Laptop computers are small and lightweight.

Laundry Detergent - Cesar put too much laundry soap in the washing machine.

Letter Writing - Everyone likes to get a letter from a relative or friend.

Memorial Day - The last Monday in May is Memorial Day.

Middle School - Middle school students are in the 5th to 9th grades.

Movie Theaters - It's fun to go to the movies. I like spy movies the best.

New York City - NYC is the most populated city in the USA. It is located in New York.

Positive Comments - List of positive comments like congratulations and great job. Say something nice today!

Pushpins - Teachers use pushpins to hang up calendars, memos, and students' work.

Seasons - A Fall Hayride - Autumn is a great time for an old-fashioned hayride in the country.

Setting a Table - Explains how to set a table with plates, silverware, glasses, and cups.

Scissors - Scissors are used to cut paper, cloth, hair, and ribbons.

Spring Rain - We wear rain hats, raincoats, and boots when it rains.

Sympathetic Phrases - "I'm sorry this happened to you." "Maybe tomorrow will be better."

Time Change - We turn our clocks forward in spring and back in fall.

Tooth Fairy - When children lose a tooth they put it under their pillows.

Trick or Treating - Children go trick-or-treating on Halloween. People give them candy.

Tree House - Tree houses are built in trees. They have only one room.

Tuxedos and Wedding Gowns - Couples wear special clothes during wedding ceremonies.

Veterinarians - Vets help sick animals get better.

Volcanoes - Volcanoes can erupt and send hot lava and ash into the air. Simple geography lesson.

Copyright © 2007 EL Civics - All Rights Reserved - Christina Niven
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Read Aloud Worksheets: Large print reading activities for beginning ESL, first grade, and second grade students.

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71 Best Tongue Twisters to Perfect Your English Pronunciation

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71 Best Tongue Twisters to Perfect Your English Pronunciation

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Tongue twisters of all sorts and sizes have been helping people to perfect their pronunciation in English for decades. Although they don't make a lot of sense, tongue twisters are very helpful in speech therapy due to their repeated sounds. For this reason, they are used by actors, politicians and even news anchors before going live. Essentially, a tongue twister works like a physical exercise: the more you practice, the better your pronunciation will be.

According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a tongue twister is "a sentence or phrase that is intended to be difficult to say, especially when repeated quickly and often". If you too want to improve or perfect your English pronunciation, dive into the complete list of English tongue twisters listed below: from short tongue twisters to tongue twisters for kids and hard tongue twisters to further challenge your pronunciation.

Short tongue twisters

Before trying the hard English tongue twisters for champions who talk fast, let's warm up your speech muscles with some short and fairly easy tongue twisters for beginners.

1. Eleven benevolent elephants.

2. She sees cheese.

3. Six sticky skeletons.

4. Truly rural.

5. Each Easter Eddie eats eighty Easter eggs.

6. Which witch is which?

7. Willy's real rear wheel.

8. Send toast to ten tense stout saints' ten tall tents.

9. Six sleek swans swam swiftly southwards.

10. Scissors sizzle, thistles sizzle.

11. A happy hippo hopped and hiccupped.

12. English can be understood through tough thorough thought, though.

13. Cooks cook cupcakes quickly.

14. Really leery, rarely Larry.

15. Twelve twins twirled twelve twigs.

16. A snake sneaks to seek a snack.

17. I like New York, unique New York, I like unique New York.

18. Six Czech cricket critics.

19. Babbling baby boys blurted boldly.

20. Which wrist watches are Swiss wrist watches?

21. How can a clam cram in a clean cream can?

22. An ape hates grape cakes.

23. Fred fed Ted bread and Ted fed Fred bread.

24. I saw a kitten eating chicken in the kitchen.

25. Can you can a can as a canner can can a can?

26. Imagine an imaginary menagerie manager managing an imaginary menagerie.

27. She sells seashells by the seashore.

28. Gobbling gargoyles gobbled gobbling goblins.

29. Nine nice night nurses nursing nicely.

30. Billy Bob blabbered boldly.

Long tongue twisters

When it comes to long tongue twisters and talking fast, we can't help but think about Eminem. Did you know that he raps with a whopping speed of 11.4 syllables per second in his song "Rap God"? We don't know much about rap, but that sure sounds like something only the God of Rap could do.

But Eminem's songs and long tongue twisters are challenging for those who are not ready for long runs. Are you? Can you defeat Eminem? Let's find out. Take a deep breath and try saying the following tongue twister without stopping.

1. All I want is a proper cup of coffee.
Made in a proper copper coffee pot.
You can believe it or not.
But I want a cup of coffee from a proper copper pot.
Tin coffee pots or iron coffee pots, they're not good to me.
If I can't have a proper cup of coffee from a proper copper coffee pot, I'll just have tea.
All I want is a proper cup of coffee.
Made in a proper copper coffee pot.
You can believe it or not.
But I want a cup of coffee from a proper copper pot.

2. To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock,
In a pestilential prison, with a life-long lock,
Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock,
From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block!
To sit in solemn silence in a dull, dark dock,
In a pestilential prison, with a life-long lock,
Awaiting the sensation of a short, sharp shock,
From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block!
A dull, dark dock, a life-long lock,
A short, sharp shock, a big black block!
To sit in solemn silence in a pestilential prison,
And awaiting the sensation
From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block!

3. I'm a mother pheasant plucker, I pluck mother pheasants.
I'm the most pleasant mother pheasant plucker to ever pluck a mother pheasant.
I'm not the pheasant plucker I'm the pheasant plucker's wife, I've been plucking Mother pheasants my whole pheasant plucking life.
I'm not the pheasant plucker I'm the pheasant plucker's mate, I'm only plucking Pheasants 'cause the pheasant plucker's late.

4. A tree-toad loved a she-toad
Who lived up in a tree.
He was a two-toed tree-toad,
But a three-toed toad was she.
The two-toed tree-toad tried to win
The three-toed she-toad's heart,
For the two-toed tree-toad loved the ground
That the three-toed tree-toad trod.
But the two-toed tree-toad tried in vain;
He couldn't please her whim.
From her tree-toad bower,
With her three-toed power,
The she-toad vetoed him.

1. Mr. See owned a saw.
And Mr. Soar owned a seesaw.
Now, See's saw sawed Soar's seesaw
Before Soar saw See,
Which made Soar sore.
Had Soar seen See's saw
Before See sawed Soar's seesaw,
See's saw would not have sawed
Soar's seesaw.
So See's saw sawed Soar's seesaw.
But it was sad to see Soar so sore
just because See's saw sawed
Soar's seesaw.

2. Ned Nott was shot and Sam Shott was not.
So it is better to be Shott than Nott.
Some say Nott was not shot.
But Shott says he shot Nott.
Either the shot Shott shot at Nott was not shot,
Or Nott was shot.
If the shot Shott shot shot Nott, Nott was shot.
But if the shot Shott shot shot Shott,
Then Shott was shot, not Nott.
However, the shot Shott shot shot not Shott, but Nott.

3. A flea and a fly in a flue
Said the fly "Oh what should we do"
Said the flea" Let us fly
Said the fly "Let us flee"
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

4. Of all the felt I ever felt,
I never felt a piece of felt
which felt as fine as that felt felt,
when first I felt that felt hat's felt.

Hard tongue twisters

While we're at it, we can help but wonder what the hardest tongue twister in existence is. Contrary to popular belief, it's not supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.

At one point, "the sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick" held the Guinness World Record for the hardest twister, but since the category no longer exists, the title was probably revoked.

Don't worry though! We are not running out of options. In 2013, MIT‌ researchers concluded that "pad kid poured curd pulled cod" is the hardest tongue twister in the world. In fact, Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel, an MIT psychologist, says you will get a prize if you manage to say that 10 times quickly. And not any kind of "quickly". We're talking super-sonic-Eminem-quickly!

1. Pad kid poured curd pulled cod.

2. If you must cross a course cross cow across a crowded cow crossing, cross the cross coarse cow across the crowded cow crossing carefully.

3. Brisk brave brigadiers brandished broad bright blades, blunderbusses, and bludgeons - balancing them badly.

4. Six sick hicks nick six slick bricks with picks and sticks.

5. Can you can a canned can into an un-canned can like a canner can can a canned can into an un-canned can?

6. The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick.

7. Rory the warrior and Roger the worrier were reared wrongly in a rural brewery.

8. Ingenious iguanas improvising an intricate impromptu on impossibly-impractical instruments.

9. I saw Susie sitting in a shoe shine shop
Where she shines, she sits, and where she sits, she shines.

10. When a doctor doctors a doctor, does the doctor doing the doctoring doctor as the doctor being doctored wants to be doctored or does the doctor doing the doctoring doctor as he wants to doctor?

11. These thousand tricky tongue twisters trip thrillingly off the tongue.

12. Thirty-three thirsty, thundering thoroughbreds thumped Mr. Thurber on Thursday.

13. Brisk brave brigadiers brandished broad bright blades, blunderbusses, and bludgeons-balancing them badly.

14. A skunk sat on a stump and thunk the stump stunk, but the stump thunk the skunk stunk.

15. Give papa a cup of proper coffee in a copper coffee cup.

16. He threw three free throws.

17. Near an ear, a nearer ear, a nearly eerie ear.

18. Many an anemone sees an enemy anemone.

19. Chop shops stock chops.

Tongue twisters for kids

Tongue twisters for kids are all sweet, fun, and games until you increase the speed. If you haven't had enough training, even they can tie your tongue into a Gordian knot. Literally.

Take a little brother, sister, or your own kid, and let's see who wins the challenge!

1. Blue bluebird.

2. Four fine fresh fish for you.

3. Daddy Draws Doors.

4. Three free throws.

5. The big bug bit the little beetle.

6. Friendly fleas and fireflies.

7. Fresh fried fish.

8. The raging ram runs 'round rugged Ricky to hit Mickey.

9. Specific Pacific.

10. Tommy tossed his twelfth tooth when it turned two times.

11. Fred fed Ted bread and Ted fed Fred bread.

12. Betty's big bunny bobbled by the blueberry bush.

13. Six sticky skeletons.

14. Green glass globes glow greenly.

15. Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't very fuzzy, was he?

16. If a dog chews shoes, whose shoes does he choose?

17. Rubber baby buggy bumpers.

18. I scream, you scream,
We all scream for ice cream.

19. Bouncing bed bugs borrowed blankets.

20. Perspicacious Polly Perkins purchased Peter's product
And peddled pickles to produce a pretty profit!

Funny tongue twisters

Our all-time favorite: funny tongue twisters! You'd think all tongue twisters are funny, but nothing compares to this exclusive selection. In fact, you probably heard these ones before. Everybody calls them „funny" for a reason!

Don't forget to challenge your friends!

1. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers;
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked;
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.

2. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck
if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
He would chuck, he would, as much as he could,
and chuck as much wood as a woodchuck would
if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

3. She sells seashells on the seashore.
The shells she sells are seashells, I'm sure.
And if she sells seashells on the seashore,
Then I'm sure she sells seashore shells.

4. Birdie birdie in the sky laid a turdie in my eye.
If cows could fly I'd have a cow pie in my eye.

5. How much ground would a groundhog hog, if a groundhog could hog ground? A groundhog would hog all the ground he could hog, if a groundhog could hog ground.

6. I slit the sheet, the sheet I slit, and on the slitted sheet I sit.

Tongue twisters with S, R, L and TH

As we already mentioned, tongue twisters can be extremely helpful for speech therapy. If you are having problems pronouncing certain sounds like "s", "r", "l" or "th", practicing with the right tongue twisters can ameliorate your speech impediment. Here are a few examples:

Tongue twisters with S

1. She sells seashells by the seashore of Seychelles.

2. "Surely Sylvia swims!" shrieked Sammy surprised. "Someone should show Sylvia some strokes so she shall not sink."

3. Selfish shellfish. (repeat it several times)

Tongue twisters with R and L

1. Red lorry, yellow lorry.

2. A really leery Larry rolls readily to the road.

3. Rory's lawn rake rarely rakes really right.

4. Lucky rabbits like to cause a ruckus.

5. I looked right at Larry's rally and left in a hurry.

6. Round and round the rugged rocks the ragged rascal ran.

Tongue twisters with TH

1. The thirty-three thieves thought that they thrilled the throne throughout Thursday.

2. Something in a thirty-acre thermal thicket of thorns and thistles thumped and thundered threatening the three-D thoughts of Matthew the thug - although, theatrically, it was only the thirteen-thousand thistles and thorns through the underneath of his thigh that the thirty-year-old thug thought of that morning.

3. Thirty-three thousand feathers on a thrushes throat.

The world-famous Peter Piper tongue twister first appeared in print sometime in 1813, in a book called "Peter Piper's Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation", though it is believed that it may have already been in common use by that time. Fast forward to today, people all around the world still love to have a laugh and twist their tongues with this rhyme and many others. And now you do too.

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100 Tongue Twisters to Perfect Pronunciation in English

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Tongue twisters of all sorts and sizes have been helping people to perfect their pronunciation in English for decades. Although they don't make a lot of sense, tongue twisters are very helpful in speech therapy due to their repeated sounds. For this reason, they are used by actors, politicians and even news anchors before going live.

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Easy steps to improve the sound of your voice

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Easy steps to improve the sound of your voice

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Voice Training Exercise | Easy steps to improve the sound of your voice

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10 Tips for Improving Your Public Speaking Skills

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10 Tips for Improving Your Public Speaking Skills

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According to The Guinness Book of World Records, the toughest tongue twister is 'The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick' . However, if researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are to be believed, there may be a new contender for that coveted spot.

Dr. Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel and her team assert that 'pad kid poured curd pulled cold' is the toughest tongue twister that has ever been concocted. In fact it is so difficult, that when people were asked to repeat it rapidly ten times, they became so tongue-tied that they stopped speaking altogether. The twister revealed at the Fall Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America that was held in San Francisco from December 2nd-6th, was part of a study conducted by Stefanie's team to get some insight into the human brain's speech planning process.

The researcher says that for some reason when certain words are spoken together quickly, people seem to lose control and more often than not, the one sound seems to replace the other. For example try saying fast a few times and you will soon start pronouncing the words as ! Similarly, 'top cop' seems to rapidly turns into '

How the brain processes each tongue twister also seems to depend on if it comprises of a few words or is a full sentence. In the former case, the tongue often ends up saying just the first letter of the first word-like tkop instead 'top cop', while in the case of the latter it sounds like 'tah-kop'. While not sure, they believe it may have something to do with the regular rhythm of a word list as compared to the somewhat irregular timing of a sentence.

The MIT team plan to continue their research by placing tiny transducers on the tongues of volunteers and measuring their articulation to try gain further insight. Meanwhile, we can all drive people around us a little crazy, by constantly repeating a phrase that even the researchers agree makes no sense.

'pad kid poured curd pulled cold'

Resources: Huffingtonpost.com, dailymail.co.uk

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MIT Researchers Reveal The World's Toughest Tongue Twister!

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According to The Guinness Book of World Records, the toughest tongue twister is 'The sixth sick sheik's sixth sheep's sick'. However, if researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are to be believed, there may be a new contender for that coveted spot.

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The History Behind 8 Famous Tongue Twisters

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The History Behind 8 Famous Tongue Twisters

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Tongue twisters have been screwing up speaking abilities around the world for centuries. As entertaining as tripping over tricky terms can be, early English twisters were also used to teach pupils proper speech. In a note to teachers in his 1878 book Practical Elocution, J.W. Shoemaker reminded them of the "higher motive" of these confounding sayings: "To The Teacher-While many of the exercises ... may create amusement in a class, a higher motive than 'Amusement' has prompted their insertion. Practice is here afforded in nearly every form of difficult articulation."

Whether it's selling seashells by the seashore or buying Betty Botter's bitter butter, some of these difficult phrases go way back to when elocution was practiced as routinely as multiplication tables. Come along as we untangle the history behind a few familiar phrases. Fittingly, many tongue twister origin stories are just as knotty as the expressions themselves.

1. PETER PIPER

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers;
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked;
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

Peter and his famous pickled peppers first appeared in print in 1813 in John Harris's Peter Piper's Practical Principles of Plain and Perfect Pronunciation.

But as is the case with many classic tongue twisters, the rhyme itself may have already been in common use by that time (the book offered similarly formatted phrases for each letter of the alphabet, and Peter clearly got top billing).

Several spice enthusiasts have also suggested the Peter in question was based on 18th century French horticulturalist Pierre Poivre, though that connection should probably be taken with a grain of salt (or pepper, in this case).

Much like Mary Anning and her rumored seashore seashells (more on this later), Poivre's ties to the poem, while feasible, aren't necessarily rooted in concrete evidence. Poivre is French for "pepper," Piper was both Latin for "pepper" and a typical British last name, and the man was known for smuggling cloves from the Spice Islands in his day, so the supposed link makes sense. As a renowned gardener, Poivre may very well have pickled peppers with those stolen cloves, but we don't actually know for sure.

2. HOW MUCH WOOD WOULD A WOODCHUCK CHUCK?

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck,
If a woodchuck could chuck wood?

While it likely predates her, Vaudeville performer Fay Templeton is credited with putting the woodchucking woodchuck on the map. "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?" was the chorus of a number Templeton sang in 1903 in the Broadway musical The Runaways (not to be confused with the musical Runaways).

Robert Hobart Davis and Theodore F. Morse wrote Templeton's " Woodchuck Song," and a few years later "Ragtime" Bob Roberts covered it on his 1904 record, boosting its popularity. The tongue-tripping refrain stuck around and even inspired the title of director Werner Herzog's 1976 documentary "How Much Wood Would a Woodchuck Chuck: Observations on a New Language" about the 13th International World Livestock Auctioneering Championship.

More recently, scholars have focused less on the origin of the phrase and more on the answer to its central question. In 1988, a fish and wildlife technician for the New York Department of Environmental Conservation made national headlines when he posited if a woodchuck could chuck wood (because they actually can't) it would be able to chuck about 700 pounds of the stuff-but that little detail must not have fit into the linguistic flow of the original rhyme.

3. AND 4. BETTY BOTTER AND TWO TOOTERS

Betty Botter bought some butter;
"But," said she, "this butter's bitter!
If I put it in my batter
It will make my batter bitter.
But a bit o' better butter
Will but make my batter better."
Then she bought a bit o' butter
Better than the bitter butter,
Made her bitter batter better.
So 'twas better Betty Botter
Bought a bit o' better butter.

**

A tutor who tooted the flute
Tried to teach two young tooters to toot.
Said the two to the tutor,
"Is it harder to toot, or
To tutor two tooters to toot?"

Both these classic twisters can be traced to poet and novelist Carolyn Wells's writings in the late 1890s. Betty Botter would go on to be included in Mother Goose's nursery rhymes and both verses can be found in several variations. While we don't know who or what exactly sparked the characters of Betty or the tutor, we do know Wells was pretty prolific in terms of her writing. Her 1902 book A Nonsense Anthology-another volume of silly linguistic gymnastics-would be her most famous, but she was also behind more than 100 other books, including mysteries and children's stories. As if her written contributions to the American language weren't enough, Wells was also known for donating her epic collection of Walt Whitman manuscripts and first editions to the Library of Congress.

5. SHE SELLS SEASHELLS

She sells seashells on the sea shore.
The shells she sells are seashells, I'm sure.
And if she sells seashells on the sea shore,
Then I'm sure she sells seashore shells.

The story behind "She Sells Seashells" has gotten perhaps the most attention in recent years. Legend has it the rhyme is a tribute to 19th century English paleontologist Mary Anning.

Anning was an impressive fossil hunter who is thought to have been responsible for scientific achievements from discovering the first articulated plesiosaur to being among the first to identify fossilized poop-though her male contemporaries had a frustrating way of swiping credit from her.

Anning is known in scientific circles (Charles Dickens even wrote about his admiration for her after her 1847 death) but the idea that she's also the muse behind the tongue twister has given the general public a nice way to honor her as well. Of course, as Stephen Winick of the Library of Congress's American Folklife Center pointed out, we don't actually have anything that proves the rumored connection between Anning and the tongue twister. Many outlets cited the 1908 Terry Sullivan and Harry Gifford song that includes the phrase in its lyrics as the birth of this particular tongue twister, but Winick found a handful of earlier instances of its use (similar versions were included in Shoemaker's elocution book and published in an 1898 issue of Werner's Magazine, for example). The first known suggestion that the verse was related to Anning seems to be a 1977 book Henry De la Beche: Observations on an Observer, though it was only raised as a possibility and there was no source offered for the reference.

6. I SCREAM, YOU SCREAM

I scream, you scream,
We all scream for ice cream.

Tongues didn't get particularly twisted with this one, but they did get cold.

There's some disagreement on who first came up with this ditty about everyone's favorite frozen treat. Throughout the 19th century there were many jokes and comments about how similar "ice cream" and "I scream" sound. But in 1905 a company selling ice cream freezers in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, advertised "I Scream, You Scream, We all Scream for Ice Cream! This is certainly Ice Cream Weather. Have you a good Ice Cream Freezer?" While unlikely the first usage of the phrase (something very similar appears in Wisconsin a few months earlier), the rhyme probably became famous thanks to Howard Johnson, Billy Moll, and Robert King, who wrote the phrase into a song of the same name in 1927. Waring's Pennsylvanians recorded the song, and it became a jazz standard in the '40s. It's been making people hungry, and haunting ice cream truck drivers, ever since.

7. SUPERCALIFRAGILISTICEXPIALIDOCIOUS

Maybe the best-known one-word tongue twister, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious isn't short on complicated back story. Most people associate the mouthful of a nonsense word with Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke dancing with cartoons from the 1964 movie adaptation of P.L. Travers's book series Mary Poppins.

But according to songwriters Barney Young and Gloria Parker, they'd used the word first (or a slight variation on it, supercalafajalistickespeealadojus) in their song, which was also known as "The Super Song." So when Disney came out with their song, written by Robert and Richard Sherman, Young and Parker took them to court for copyright infringement. The Shermans claimed they'd learned the funny word at camp as children in the '30s. Young and Parker said Young had made up the word as a kid in 1921 and the pair had sent their song to Disney in 1951. They sued for $12 million.

The judge in the ordeal was so flustered by the 14-syllable term in court proceedings, he insisted they refer to it as simply "the word." He ended up throwing out the case, saying the tongue twister had been in common use in New York as far back as the '30s, but the controversy always lingered. Later, another instance of the word being used in 1931, this time spelled supercaliflawjalisticexpialadoshus, was discovered. It had appeared in the Syracuse University student newspaper [ PDF], and the writer of the column claimed she'd been the one who made it up, too.

8. PAD KID

Pad kid poured curd pulled cod

Not yet as recognizable as some other more traditional rhymes, this short sentence was developed by MIT researchers in 2013 as the world's trickiest twister. The phrase is deceptively harder than something like the "I Scream" song or even the woodchucking woodchuck.

As part of the 166th meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, where the facilitators were looking to find how certain speech patterns work psychologically, volunteers were recorded during the project reciting different types of twisters-and Pad Kid caused the most trouble. Because of the phrase's alliteration and words with similar sounds, the brain makes it difficult to repeat quickly without a mistake.

Previously, "The sixth sick sheikh's sixth sheep's sick" was often cited as the world's toughest twister (it even held the Guinness World Record for a time). But as the official category no longer exists, the MIT creation just might take the tongue twister cake.

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The History Behind 8 Famous Tongue Twisters

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Tongue twisters have been screwing up speaking abilities around the world for centuries. As entertaining as tripping over tricky terms can be, early English twisters were also used to teach pupils proper speech. In a note to teachers in his 1878 book Practical Elocution , J.W.

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Vocal exercise - Speaking #3: Tongue twisters part 1

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Practice Tongue Twisters – 12 Tongue Twisters for Vocal Exercises

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50 Tongue Twisters to improve pronunciation in English

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50 Tongue Twisters to improve pronunciation in English

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Tongue twisters are a great way to practice and improve pronunciation and fluency. They can also help to improve accents by using alliteration, which is the repetition of one sound. They're not just for kids, but are also used by actors, politicians, and public speakers who want to sound clear when speaking. Below, you will find some of the most popular English tongue twisters. Say them as quickly as you can. If you can master them, you will be a much more confident speaker.

1. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where's the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?

2. Betty Botter bought some butter
But she said the butter's bitter
If I put it in my batter, it will make my batter bitter
But a bit of better butter will make my batter better
So 'twas better Betty Botter bought a bit of better butter

3. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?
He would chuck, he would, as much as he could, and chuck as much wood
As a woodchuck would if a woodchuck could chuck wood

4. She sells seashells by the seashore.

5. How can a clam cram in a clean cream can?

6. I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.

7. I saw Susie sitting in a shoeshine shop.

8. Susie works in a shoeshine shop. Where she shines she sits, and where she sits she shines.

9. Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair. Fuzzy Wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, was he?

10. Can you can a can as a canner can can a can?

11. I have got a date at a quarter to eight; I'll see you at the gate, so don't be late.

12. You know New York, you need New York, you know you need unique New York.

13. I saw a kitten eating chicken in the kitchen.

14. If a dog chews shoes, whose shoes does he choose?

15. I thought I thought of thinking of thanking you.

16. I wish to wash my Irish wristwatch.

17. Near an ear, a nearer ear, a nearly eerie ear.

18. Eddie edited it.

19. Willie's really weary.

20. A big black bear sat on a big black rug.

21. Tom threw Tim three thumbtacks.

22. He threw three free throws.

23. Nine nice night nurses nursing nicely.

24. So, this is the sushi chef.

25. Four fine fresh fish for you.

26. Wayne went to wales to watch walruses.

27. Six sticky skeletons. (x3)

28. Which witch is which? (x3)

29. Snap crackle pop. (x3)

30. Flash message. (x3)

31. Red Buick, blue Buick. (x3)

32. Red lorry, yellow lorry. (x3)

33. Thin sticks, thick bricks. (x3)

34. Stupid superstition. (x3)

35. Eleven benevolent elephants. (x3)

36. Two tried and true tridents. (x3)

37. Rolling red wagons. (x3)

38. Black back bat. (x3)

39. She sees cheese. (x3)

40. Truly rural. (x3)

41. Good blood, bad blood. (x3)

42. Pre-shrunk silk shirts. (x3)

43. Ed had edited it. (x3)

44. We surely shall see the sun shine soon.

45. Which wristwatches are Swiss wristwatches?

46. Fred fed Ted bread, and Ted fed Fred bread.

47. I slit the sheet, the sheet I slit, and on the slitted sheet I sit.

48. A skunk sat on a stump and thunk the stump stunk, but the stump thunk the skunk stunk.

49. Lesser leather never weathered wetter weather better.

50. Of all the vids I've ever viewed, I've never viewed a vid as valued as Alex's engVid vid.

Practice some common tongue twisters with me in these videos:

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50 Tongue Twisters to improve pronunciation in English

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Tongue twisters are a great way to practice and improve pronunciation and fluency. They can also help to improve accents by using alliteration, which is the repetition of one sound. They're not just for kids, but are also used by actors, politicians, and public speakers who want to sound clear when speaking.

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A reading app for kids

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Reading practice is easy with Rivet, an app with 3,500+ free books for kids.

Additionally, reading support on every page enables kids to practice with confidence knowing help is always available - it is a great way to meet daily reading goals!

Features:
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Version 1.0.24

* Some UI updates
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Information

Compatibility

Requires iOS 10.0 or later. Compatible with iPhone 5S, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus, iPhone SE, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, iPhone XS, iPhone XS Max, iPhone XR, iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, iPhone 11 Pro Max, iPad Air, iPad Air Wi‑Fi + Cellular, iPad mini 2, iPad mini 2 Wi‑Fi + Cellular, iPad Air 2, iPad Air 2 Wi‑Fi + Cellular, iPad mini 3, iPad mini 3 Wi‑Fi + Cellular, iPad mini 4, iPad mini 4 Wi‑Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro (12.9‑inch), iPad Pro (12.9‑inch) Wi‑Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro (9.7‑inch), iPad Pro (9.7‑inch) Wi‑Fi + Cellular, iPad (5th generation), iPad (5th generation) Wi‑Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro (12.9‑inch) (2nd generation), iPad Pro (12.9‑inch) (2nd generation) Wi‑Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro (10.5‑inch), iPad Pro (10.5‑inch) Wi‑Fi + Cellular, iPad (6th generation), iPad Wi‑Fi + Cellular (6th generation), iPad Pro (11‑inch), iPad Pro (11‑inch) Wi‑Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro (12.9‑inch) (3rd generation), iPad Pro (12.9‑inch) (3rd generation) Wi‑Fi + Cellular, iPad mini (5th generation), iPad mini (5th generation) Wi‑Fi + Cellular, iPad Air (3rd generation), iPad Air (3rd generation) Wi‑Fi + Cellular, iPad (7th generation), iPad (7th generation) Wi‑Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro (11‑inch) (2nd generation), iPad Pro (11‑inch) (2nd generation) Wi‑Fi + Cellular, iPad Pro (12.9‑inch) (4th generation), iPad Pro (12.9‑inch) (4th generation) Wi‑Fi + Cellular and iPod touch.

Copyright

© Area 120 Inc.

Family Sharing

Up to six family members will be able to use this app with Family Sharing enabled.

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‎Reading practice is easy with Rivet, an app with 3,500+ free books for kids. Additionally, reading support on every page enables kids to practice with confidence knowing help is always available - it is a great way to meet daily reading goals! Features: - 3,500+ free, leveled children's books - 8...

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Five Great Reading Apps for Booklovers Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired

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Five Great Reading Apps for Booklovers Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired

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Five Great Reading Apps for Booklovers Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired

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Editor's Note: This blog post has been updated to include additional information about reading apps. Check out "Reading Apps for Booklovers Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired" for more information. Tablet computers, like the iPad, Kindle Fire, and Samsung Galaxy, have dramatically changed how we read.

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Library Services for Blind and Visually Impaired people

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Library Services for Blind and Visually Impaired people

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Libraries for the Blind in the Information Age Guidelines for Development

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Libraries for the Blind in the Information Age Guidelines for Development

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Browse our selection of sources of accessible books for people with sight loss and print disabilities. The list includes libraries and commercial providers from around the world.

Please note that this list does not purport to be comprehensive and that WIPO does not guarantee the level of accessibility of the books obtained from these sources, or that the actual web sites are accessible. WIPO will not be held responsible for damages of any nature resulting from the use of, or reliance on, the information contained therein.

Contact us if your organization wishes to be included on this list.

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Browse our selection of sources of accessible books for people with sight loss and print disabilities. The list includes libraries and commercial providers from around the world. Please note that this list does not purport to be comprehensive and that WIPO does not guarantee the level of accessibility of the books obtained from these sources, or that the actual web sites are accessible.

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"The Little Red Hen": Accessible Ideas for Children with Multiple Disabilities

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"The Little Red Hen": Accessible Ideas for Children with Multiple Disabilities

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We are sharing them on Paths to Literacy and hope that others will use them! Please add your comments at the bottom of the page. This project is based on The Little Red Hen by Paul Galdone.

The book I selected to adapt was The Little Red Hen, a classic story that everyone has heard, written by Paul Galdone. The most difficult challenge was finding a book to adapt. I wanted a book that I could use in some way with all my students with multiple disabilities.

The following are the objects included in my story box:

The first items I selected for my story basket were the characters: a hen, a cat, a dog, and a mouse. I found the hen at the Rural King for $4. I picked the hen with reddish tinted fur because of course the hen in the story is red. The hen has a tail, wings, a comb, wattle, and webbed feet. The dog is the same kind of dog as the one in the book. It is the most real life stuffed animal I have ever seen. It has floppy ears, a long tail, and toes just like a real dog. I selected a cat that has pointy ears, whiskers, and a long tail. I also added a collar with a bell. The mouse is small with a tail, whiskers, pointy nose, and ears. Next, I found the main objects needed for planting the wheat. The story tells us that the Hen hoed the garden. I found a child-size hoe. I knew this would be an important concept to review because a student may have never heard of or know what a hoe is, whereas they may be familiar with a shovel. I also bought a watering can. I ordered wheat grain and flour and put them each in a container. I felt that it was very important to find something very close to the real thing, so I bought wheat berries. I was also able to find natural dried wheat at Hobby Lobby. The most challenging object I wanted was to have a porch. I asked my Grandfather to build me a house with a porch. I knew that a porch was not an object that I could just go buy. I found a miniature chair, couch, fireplace, and oven with a cake on top to place inside the house. Although these are small objects, tactually a student would be able to process the concept of each, if they had already had real-life experience with the item.

Implementation Ideas

Object Exploration During Story Telling: While the story is being read, the student will have the opportunity to explore each of the objects in the box as they are mentioned. This will also be a wonderful opportunity to gain background knowledge needed for the Boardmaker images and tactile symbol cards.

Comprehension: Using objects in the story box, students can answer comprehension questions about the story.

Retelling Story: The objects can be used to retell the story. The objects will also provide the students with the background knowledge needed for the picture cards and tactile symbol cards. Students can explore the object as it is being discussed/read in the story.

Sequencing: Using the objects in the story box, students will be able to sequence the events of the story.

Picture Object Identification: Use the All in One board and put two picture cards on it (ex. Cat and Dog). Present the object to the student. Ask them which one is the dog. Have the student take the dog off the board and hand it to you. Exchange the picture for the object.

Additional Activities

Planting - You could plant flowers with your students. Reviewing the steps in the story, plant the seeds, water the seeds, etc.

Baking A Cake - You could bake a cake like The Little Red Hen does in the story. I would use the Making Picture Recipes Kit from APH.

I created 18 symbols to represented the story, The Little Red Hen, by Paul Galdone.

Each picture symbol card is printed on cardstock paper and laminated. A hook and loop fastener on the back. The cards are 4 inches by 4 inches with a thick, black border. The font is Arial 24 Bold. The picture symbols can be presented on an Invisiboard or All in One board.

First, I created symbols using original Boardmaker images and only made a few changes to the color. Then I made the symbols more CVI-friendly. I changed the background color and the image to either red or yellow to increase the contrast.

There symbols can be used to retell the story or answer questions about the story. I would also use them with a student for object-picture identification. The student can be shown the object and select the matching image.

Questions

1. Who are the characters in The Little Red Hen? Little Red Hen, Dog, Cat, Mouse

2. Where did the mouse sleep? Chair

3. Where did the cat sleep? Couch

4. Where did the dog sleep? Porch

5. What did the Little Red Hen find in the garden? Grain

6. What did the Little Red Hen use to water the garden? Watering Can

7. What tool does the Little Red Hen use in the garden? Hoe

8. Where did the Little Red Hen plant the grain? Garden

9. What does the wheat turn into at the mill? Flour

10. What did the Little Red Hen bake with the flour? Cake

11. Where did the Little Red Hen take the wheat to be turned into flour? Mill

12. What room in the house do you bake a cake? Kitchen

13. Where did the characters live in the story? Cozy Little House

14. What does the Little Red Hen bake the cake in? Oven

Using the Tactile Connections Kit from APH, I created 18 symbols to represent the story The Little Red Hen by Paul Galdone.

The first step in this process was to look at the different categories of Tactile Connections cards.

Next, I went through the book to find symbols for each category. (Note: Not all categories were used.)

I then created a print label (Arial, bold, 24 font) and a braille label for each card. Next, I had to determine what tactile element to added to each card.

Symbol

Tactile Element

Reason tactile element was selected and background knowledge needed

I found a clear plastic container that would store all my tactile communication symbols. I added vinyl stickers to the container including the title, a hen, cat, dog, mouse, and wheat. Braille labels were also added.

Students can answer the following comprehension questions about The Little Red Hen with the tactile communication symbols.

1. Who did all the housework? Little Red Hen

2. Who slept on the porch? Dog

3. Who slept on the couch? Cat

4. Who slept on the chair? Mouse

5. What is the setting of the story? House

6. Where does the Little Red Hen plant the grain? Garden

7. Where does the Little Red Hen take the wheat to be turned into flour? Mill

8. Where does the Little Red Hen bake the cake? Kitchen

9. What did the Little Red Hen find while hoeing in the garden? Grain

10. What does the grain grow to be? Wheat

11. What does the wheat turn into at the mill? Flour

12. What does the Little Red Hen bake with the flour? Cake

13. What does the Little Red Hen bake the cake in? Oven

14. What did the Little Red Hen keep asking for? Help

Sequencing: Using the tactile symbols, Plant, Hoe, Water, and Cut, I would ask the students to think about the steps the Little Red Hen took with the wheat. The student can sequence the steps in planting wheat.

Retelling: Using the tactile symbols, the students can retell the story.

This talking book was created with Boardmaker images and adapted for children with CVI.

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"The Little Red Hen": Accessible Ideas for Children with Multiple Disabilities

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We are sharing them on Paths to Literacy and hope that others will use them! Please add your comments at the bottom of the page. This project is based on The Little Red Hen by Paul Galdone. The book I selected to adapt was The Little Red Hen, a classic story that everyone has heard, written by Paul Galdone.

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Yale University is offering a free course online - The Science of Well-Being - that teaches you how to be happier.

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Yale University is offering a free course online - The Science of Well-Being - that teaches you how to be happier.

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You can audit the course entirely for free.

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In this course you will engage in a series of challenges designed to increase your own happiness and build more productive habits. As preparation for these tasks, Professor Laurie Santos reveals misconceptions about happiness, annoying features of the mind that lead us to think the way we do, and the research that can help us change. You will ultimately be prepared to successfully incorporate a specific wellness activity into your life.

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The Science of Well-Being by Yale University | Coursera

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In this course you will engage in a series of challenges designed to increase your own happiness and build more productive habits. As preparation for these tasks, Professor Laurie Santos reveals misconceptions about happiness, annoying features of the mind that lead us to think the way we do, and the research that can help us change.

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10 Tips for Reading Aloud to Children Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired

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10 Tips for Reading Aloud to Children Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired

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National Braille Press shares 10 tips for reading aloud to children who are blind or visually impaired. These suggestions may be useful to families or teachers of young children with visual impairments. Tips include:

1. Choose the right book.

2. Make reading a family tradition.

3. Take you time.

4. Before reading each page, describe the images.

5. Use vocal expression.

6. Describe and model the facial expressions and body language.

7. Ask simple questions that spark responses and foster empathy.

8. Use tactiles while you are reading - toys, objects found around the house, natural materials found outside.

9. Let your child help tell the story.

10. After reading the story, be sure to discuss it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
10 Tips for Reading Aloud to Children Who Are Blind or Visually Impaired

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
National Braille Press shares 10 tips for reading aloud to children who are blind or visually impaired. These suggestions may be useful to families or teachers of young children with visual impairments. Tips include: Choose the right book. Make reading a family tradition. Take you time. Before reading each page, describe the images.

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Using Touch Technology to Foster Storytelling in the Preschool Classroom

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Using Touch Technology to Foster Storytelling in the Preschool Classroom