Korean Job Discussion Forums

[joe_doufu]

Happens to everybody. Drink lots of water obsessively. This is more healthy for you than coca cola and even diet coke. Drink hot water, not cold water. Also take your vitamins and learn to love VITA-500. Do not trust Korean doctors... they are well educated but they're accustomed to a nation of hypochondriacs who would consider them quacks if they didn't prescribe a minimum of eighteen pills a day for a headache, acne, poor TOEIC scores, or similarly serious ailment.

Relax your voice. A new teacher often raises the pitch of his/her voice to try to get attention from students. I think I've adjusted to a deep, resonating roar, rather than a high pitched holler, and this seems to be easier on my throat. Make the students read stuff. Give yourself rest breaks in the form of student-led activities, perhaps hangman.

[stakay]

if you want to find the muscles to project your voice with - breathe out, bend over, breathe in deeply, hold your breathe, and the stomache muscles that should be kicking in to hold your breath are the ones that you need to use while you speak. it's hard to do all the time though. i've been trained in this sort of stuff and i still get a sore throat from teaching over here - i teach all speaking classes - the only remedies that are working for me are to drink HEAPS of water and not speak as much as possible. good luck!

[Rteacher]

Best home herbal remedy for sore throats is ginger root tea with honey (and a little fresh squeezed lemon and a dash of cayenne if available) Peel the ginger roots (found in most markets) slice them in half lenghwise, ... boil them for a few minutes, cover and let stand for a few more minutes. - If you can take it, just peel a fresh ginger root (I prefer the drier, better-looking Chinese ones to the soggy, dirt-covered Korean kind...) and chew on a piece till it literally burns your sore throat away...then spit it out

As an alternative to yelling at my big (high school) classes to be quiet, I bought a "slide-whistle" (for an outrageous mon won) which I refer to as my "sound weapon" ...

[pest2]

[Dan The Chainsawman]

SPINOZA yer right.

[Qinella]

One of the Korean English teachers at my hagwon has lost her voice three times in the past 5 months. She just comes to work and does the best she can. Sick day? Haha, what's that, she says.

[EH]

Hi.
I'm a speech-language pathologist. SLPs treat voice disorders, among other things. Let me give you some ideas for how to keep your voice healthy:

1) When you lose your voice, don't talk at all for a few days. If you try talking and your voice still sounds terrible, stop talking again. If there's an emergency, whisper. Whispering doesn't engage the vocal cords, so they can still rest. But some people whisper really loudly and that strains the muscles around your vocal cords, which is a terrible habit that'll hurt you later. So if you do whisper, keep it soft and relaxed. If you do talk while your voice still sounds terrible, the swelling will increase and you run the risk of permanent injury.

2) Drink lots of liquids. Water is best, up to 8 or 10 cups a day. Juice is okay, too. But avoid acidic juices if acid reflux is an issue. Definitely avoid alcohol and caffeine, because these will just dry you out. Milk products increase mucus production in a very few people, but not in most. So milk is usually okay.

3) Avoid smokey environments (bars, etc.). And obviously, don't smoke. Also avoid really noisy environments because in them you have to strain your voice to be heard.

4) Honey, throat drops, etc. (I love meshil tea myself) may ease throat pain. That's all good. But they won't correct the underlying problem. Neither will breathing exercises (unless your problem is caused only by vocal tension) Only vocal rest can really cure you.

5) For acid reflux, avoid eating anything at all for up to three hours before lying down (to sleep, or just to lie down and rest). Foods that often make reflux worse include spicy things (gochujang...), alcohol, and acidic things like orange juice or tomato sauce. If you continue to have reflux then all the vocal rest in the world won't cure your voice alone. You need to take care of that problem urgently. The acid coming up from your esophogus is burning the outer membrane layer of your vocal cords and causing pain and swelling. This is a really bad thing, and it only gets worse.

6) When your voice is back to normal again, protect it. Continue to always drink a lot of liquids, stay on a reflux diet, and avoid straining your voice. If your hagwon director is telling you to speak louder, well, you need to ignore that advice or find a way around it. Speaking loudly is something that should only be done rarely, in times of great need. And pitch is also important. The higher your pitch, the more times per second your vocal cords are banging together. Thus, women and others with high voices are at higher risk for voice disorders. But men who try to use an unnaturally low voice end up straining their muscles and that leads to voice disorders, too. So use a pitch that is natural and relaxed for you, not too high or too low. Not sure if you're relaxed? Put your hand on your larynx when you talk. It should feel loose and slightly flabby. Oh, and one more thing: your vocal cords will naturally heal themselves better if you rest them completely (no talking, singing, humming, coughing, or throat clearing) for 15 minutes after each hour of teaching. The frequent rest is important; 1 hour of rest after 4 hours of teaching will not give you the same benefit. Frequent 15-minute breaks are what you need.

7) If you're following all this advice and you still have recurring problems, you need to go to a professional. Ear, nose, and throat (ENT) doctors are the medical specialists for this. In Korean it's called "ee bee in hoo gwa". They look down your throat with a camera and see what's going on in there. They can prescribe drugs and surgery to help with problems. If you're near a large hospital, you can also ask to see the speech-language pathologist ("ohn oh chi ryo sa"... and usually much cheaper than doctors). SLPs who specialize in voice disorders can also look down your throat with a camera. They can give you therapy techniques to help with the problem.

If you need more info, feel free to PM me.

Good luck.
-EH

[rvintage]

i am a vocal performer. if you have a problem with projecting your voice, try to project from you diaphram. if you don't know what this is, it's like forcing air from you lungs out through your mouth. maybe like doing a sit-up. the muscles in your stomach should tighten slightly when you speak. it's like speaking from your abdomen or chest area. very hard to explain.

also, drinking lots of fluids, any kind of tea, with as little sugar as you can stand is the best.

probaly when you get used to speaking a lot it won't be much of a problem. as far as all the meds, get used to it if you go to the doctor or hospital in korea. they give you twelve pills for anything you have. take em' or not i don't think it makes that much of a difference.

[Hollywoodaction]

[OiGirl]

Another Korean tea I really like for a sore throat is ginger tea. (May help with the acid reflux as well.) If you don't like all the sugar, you can make your own from fresh ginger, but it's kind of nasty and not so comforting!

I lose my voice about 4 times a year. In some ways it's a blessing, because I get out of making phone calls to the students' homes for a few days! It's also an opportunitu to closely examine my teacher talk/student talk ratio, fully exploit the textbook recordings, and work on my TPR skills.

[EH]

OiGirl:
You lose your voice 4 times a year!?!? Yikes. I can just imagine what your vocal cords must look like. Please, see a clinical specialist (ENT and/or speech-langauge pathologist) ASAP. Although you may be used to losing your voice by now, that doesn't mean it's okay. You are damaging the part of you that is most crucial for verbal expression. You like to talk? You'd like to continue talking well into old age? Then learn how to take better care of your voice.

rvintage:
I agree with you that efficient use of muscle support is a great thing for vocal health. One thing though: although you apparently have training and know how to use your voice, simply telling people to force air out of their lungs is likely to backfire for them. People without training who try to expell more air while talking either end up with breathiness (easy on the vocal folds, but socially weird and tough to hear well) or they end up with a booming voice that means their vocal cords are banging against each other really, really hard and causing further damage. I'd recommend that anyone who wants to learn more about muscle support for vocal health go to a professional (really good voice coach, singing teacher, or speech-language pathologist) to learn how to use these techniques properly.

Oh, and although avoiding sugar is always good, tea is best for the voice when it has no caffeine.

[Harpeau]

Getting voice lessons from a pro is a good idea. I really like your advice EH and thank you for your contribution. One thing that I might question though is encouraging people to whisper. Some voice specialists seem to believe that it may be detrimental to one's vocal chords and thus discourage it. I'm not dissagreeing with your advice, jus a little confused about what is most helpful. Again, thank you for your kindness in sharing your expertise.

[OiGirl]

A great deal of my problem is that I am not the best-coordinated of adults and tend to aspirate things easily.

[kermo]

Re: the pills.
I've discussed this one before, but it's so important that I'm happy to say it again. Next time you're at the doctor's, get a list of what you've been prescribed. Have it translated. Chances are that you're getting painkillers, and probably "digestion aids" and anti-inflammatory drugs.

However, occasionally, they're prescribe something that's really out of left field. I was prescribed a drug called Macperan, which is not even listed by the FDA, let alone recognized as a treatment for a simple infection. The few references to it I could muster up on Google seem to be involved in cocaine rehab, and it looked like a dopamine inhibitor.

[kermo]

re: getting kids' attention. I don't like to compete with the kids in the volume department, because they start to tune me out, especially when they're not clear on what I'm saying.

Try these techniques:

1) This one is best for just focussing attention in a casual way:
Clap out a simple rhythm. The one kids seem to know is "Clap, clap, clap-clap-clap!" (like the beginning of that S.A.T-U-R., D.A.Y., NIGHT! song.) If no one repeats it, do it again. When someone repeats it, congratulate them, or just smile and nod, and continue your patterns. Make them as easy or as difficult as you want, until you have the whole class doing it. You can follow this with a silent cue, like placing your hands on the desk. This is a technique used in Behaviour Modification, and it's called "Building Compliance." You're making sure they're paying attention, and they're more likely to do the next thing you ask (build up from simple to complex requests, and you get "Behaviour Momentum. It works!)

2) If the class is being rowdy and you want to come down a little harder, assume a serious expression, and place your hands on your head as a cue for the other kids to do the same. They've been trained to do this in school, and they know they must be silent. Wait until everyone is doing it. Make sure EVERYONE is doing it, and if you have a hold-out, just stare patiently at them until their classmates prompt them. The next step after this is to hold their arms straight up, but I don't tend to use this.

Start your lesson in a quiet voice, using very simple words, and the class will likely keep quiet and let you speak as quietly as you like. You can even whisper occasionally-- they like the variety, and if someone is making too much noise, the others will shush them.

Good luck!