I hope you're ready to read. These are tricks that I've learned in years of speech therapy and some tricks that I learned on my own. Ready? Okay so it's obvious that you're in a very agitated state. You're working on homework and you're thinking about these overarching doom and gloom thoughts about never living a normal life. You need to relax. Your brain is caught in a negative feedback loop. Forget all that shit. It's not important. Let's stay in the present. The very first thing I would do is drop whatever you're doing and listen to a youtube guided meditation video to bring down your anxiety. You will not be able to practice productively in this chaotic, depressed state of mind. Being anxious while speaking is like driving drunk, you have to sober up first before you can get to where you're going with a clear head. Spend a good 15 minutes just listening to guided meditation on positivity and closing your eyes and breathing deeply, feeling your stomach rise and fall, long controlled relaxed breathing. Or do something that makes you happy like playing with your dog or petting your cat, or giving your mom and dad a hug...something to make you feel love and happiness. Got that nice glow? Good. After calming down, I would get a trusted friend or family member and recite your homework in front of them. Or get them on skype. Just get someone to recite to. You need to simulate an audience. Buy them a joint afterwards for helping you because it's going to take some time. You can even do it on the phone but I liked to always have my best mate in front of me, so I could get used to someone's presence. Once you recite it a bunch of times, you will detect where your blocks are. But keep doing it. The more you confront your blocks in practice will make things that much easier when you have to face those same blocks in front of your classmates because you will not be caught off guard. And that gives you time to prepare and above all else, remain relaxed. Now to tackle the blocks. **My Old Techniques** 1.) There are many techniques on getting over certain words. I don't know which vowels or consonants you have trouble with, but when I had trouble with vowels like say for example, the word "apple", i would say "h'apple" to get over saying the "a." Or another example would be the word "So" - i could say that word no problem, so I would tack on "So" at the beginning of a difficult block (as long as it made sense.) Find transitional phrases that you can say and break up the blocks. Having those comfortable phrases you can say will make the whole passage seem not so intimidating when you break the whole fucker down to little strategic segments. Divide and conquer, instead of rushing through the whole paragraph like it was some fucked up Ninja Warrior obstacle course. **2.) Jazz hands** Using expressive jazz hands always helped me out in public speaking. I wouldn't give a shit about whether or not I was gesticulating too much, it doesn't matter. Every speaker uses their hands. Imagine yourself as a composer, calm and ready with your hands gently guiding you through your phrases, but more so, imagine your hand movements as guiding you through your emotions as well. Slow and poetic. Like your words are musical notes being played on a screen and every time you move onto a new sentence, your hands are "flowing" with each new thought. I used to mimic Obama or Bush and pound my hand in the air like a mallet every time i spoke to keep a nice, relaxing rhythm. 3.) **Strategic and Calm Breathing** Another thing I used to do is when I encountered a block, I would inhale slowly and as I was exhaling, I would softly say the word, using my exhale as a method of speech delivery. Like, you want to push the word out gently with an exhale, nice and slow. The whole point of this is keeping calm. If you feel yourself getting nervous, just gently pause, relax, find your breath again and start over. Nobody is going to care. You are the one who is stressing yourself out, so you must convince yourself to just stop and breathe, feeling your stomach rise and fall as you do this. Most people do not know how to breathe correctly. Most people breathe through their chest. This is wrong. You will naturally calm yourself when you breathe through your stomach. 4.) **Volume Control** This is one of my favorite tricks. When I was about to come across a patch of uncomfortable words, I would start speaking really softly and when the block would come, I would raise the volume of my voice. "Donald Trump is an ASSHOLE" Don't worry about sounding like you are going up and down wildly. You aren't. All speakers, fluent or otherwise raise and lower the volume of their voice all the time. It's in acting. It's in public speaking. Sometimes you can even add a sing-songy pitch or add a question mark to the beginning or end of a difficult word just so you can say it. Example: "I was walking ACROSS? the street but the hooker had already hopped in ANOTHER? car." 5.) **Emphasize different syllables of a word** Again, I would have difficulty saying words that began with "A" so for example, the word "adult" - you're expected to say "AH-dult" but I would emphasize the second syllable so it sounded like "ah-DULT!" which i could say. <-- this particular word I would start talking softly, using my exhaled breath so I could get over the "ah" part, almost sounds as if I just laid down on a soft bed like "ahhh thats nice" instead of "AH!" Again, I don't know what your blocks are, but the same tricks can be used, you just have to find what words you aren't scared of and manipulate them along with your relaxed exhale to get over the "hump" 6.) **Staccato Rhythm** I used to watch a lot of wrestling and one of the most captivating guys was The Rock. He took public speaking classes which made his delivery so good. You'll notice that he has a very noticeable rhythm when he's cutting his wrestling promos. It's very "da dum, da dum, da dum" - steady, measured and calm, like a slow cat-in-the-hat rap song. Practice. 7.) **Put on a Slight Accent** Maybe this technique isn't for everyone, so it's up to you. Whenever I would mimic an accent, say British or Irish or even (hilariously) Boston, I noticed I wouldn't stutter and it was actually fun and invigorating to speak so fluently. But I would just add a slight inflection of an accent to certain blocks, as to not sound like an insane person. If you say only a couple words with a slight accent, you will not sound like you were suddenly possessed by the ghost of Alan Rickman. **Conclusion** Practice with a sense of humor. In the beginning, it will not be funny for you, but over time it will. The point is to not take yourself so seriously, because you've been taking yourself way, way too seriously for way too long and it's done you no good. You have to learn how to laugh with life. I know I've written a goddamn novella here, but I went through the exact same ordeal so I understand and empathize. Just keep practicing. I know it's a lot of stuff to learn, but the point is not to memorize all of these techniques but to naturally absorb them into your own matrix of speaking as to unlock and smooth out your brain patterns so you do reach a level of fluency along the way. Good luck! Oh yeah, I can tell you this because I am older. Things do get better. WAY better!