Year 12 – Week 8: This King’s Speech – Part 8

This King’s Speech – Part 7

“You are a powerful speaker.”

For the past two months, this affirmation has been in mind. But, mostly, it’s unsettled like a leaf in the wind. At times, it brings me a feeling close to pride, and at other times, it makes me uncomfortable.

I’ve been teaching for sixteen years, and I had the perception for all of this time that I was an unclear speaker, and that my childhood speech impediment was still me with. Teaching students and talking to groups of teachers was a big part of my job that brought me anxiety and discomfort.

For years, before a class, or a meeting, I would push aside thoughts and doubts and go for it. Sometimes I would forget about any concerns I had about my speech in front of students and other faculty, and others times, I would feel that my speech was flawed.

Part of me knew that I was a good speaker.  I love reading books to students and telling them stories. Still, I’ve always doubted how effective I was in communicating verbally with other people.

The comment form the speech pathologist, “You are a powerful speaker” permitted me to be proud of my speech. Early in the school year, before teaching class, I let myself think of this affirmation. As a result, I let go of some doubt and came closer to fully enjoying speaking to my students. It’s one thing to be good at something and thinks you are bad, and it’s an entirely different thing to be good at something and accept that you are good at something. And I’m getting there.

I’m letting go more and more about concerns that my speech is not clear. I don’t feel myself avoiding words as much, and I enjoy taking the time to express things to my students. It almost feels like a dream being in the classroom now and letting myself feel and accept that I am good at speaking.

I feel like I can grow as a speaker, let my words come out more with less preparation, and participate without hesitation in conversation. I can be more of a speaker because I am more than I thought I was. I think about my students and those who don’t realize they are good at something. I hope that I can help them see themselves as being powerful and permit them to believe in themselves in a small way.

As I see myself better as a powerful speaker, I am becoming to understand better that I am a powerful teacher.

This King’s Speech – Part 7

The evaluation started with a conversation. This served two purposes. It gave the speech therapist an understanding of why I wanted to get an evaluation, and it also served as a speech sample.

I wasn’t nervous, but I felt very aware of my speech. There were times when I was purposely trying to speak clearer, mindful that two therapists were assessing me.  Other times I tried not to think about how I was talking so that the therapist could get an accurate sample of how I spoke. I told the therapist about this at a certain point, and they were understanding. Their affirmations helped me focus less on how I talked, and after a while, I was able to get into the groove of a conversation.

I told them about my name and how it was a struggle for me to say it clearly sometimes. One of the therapists asked me to say my name three times in a row and try not to think about it too much.

“I am Kingsley Tang. I am Kingsley Tang. I am Kingsley Tang.”

She looked at the other therapist and said, “I didn’t notice a difference, did you?” The other therapist shook her head “no” in reply.

In my head, each iteration felt different and not altogether clear. I didn’t ask them at the moment if there was an issue with how I said my name. I wanted to, but the therapists kept the conversation going.

After about fifteen minutes of me talking about my life, one therapist explained what she was thinking. Some of the normal speech assessments weren’t applicable here. A vocabulary test was pointless because I spoke with a good vocabulary.  Memory recall tests were not going to help because I could respond very quickly to their questions. In addition, they didn’t think me doing reading samples aloud would provide much insight because they were getting a good idea of how I spoke through our conversation.  So they wanted to chat a little bit more to hear me speak to complete their assessment.

One of the therapists asked me about my job. I talked to them about my school, and what I loved about being a teacher. They looked at me with great respect while I talked.  Which was nice, but their positive facial expressions felt awkward at times, so I broke eye contact.  I wasn’t in the mind space to receive positive feedback.

After I got to the end of my response, they asked if I would leave the room. Instead of having me leave and meeting and then setting up another appointment, the therapists felt like this would better use all of our time. So I left the office and sat in the waiting room.

Later, one of the therapists came out and invited me back into the office. She kindly explained,

I’m not sure if this will be helpful to hear, but neither of us hears any articulation issues in your speech. There is nothing you would benefit from working with us as a speech therapist. You are a powerful speaker. You have a great vocabulary, your ideas are well-articulated, and you are a dynamic in your speech.

She explained that both of them agreed with this assessment and had many years of professional experience that informed their assessment. They told how many people with speech issues work hard on certain sounds as children, and those strategies and negative feelings around those sounds often stick around long after a person masters those sounds.  Then it becomes an issue of affirmation, recording yourself saying those sounds so that you come to understand how you actually speak little by little, not how you remember yourself speaking as a child.  I learned how my difficulty in talking at the end of the day was not unusual, even for people without speech issues. It made sense for me since speaking takes so more me to do clearly than for other people.

I don’t remember anyone complimenting my speech as an adult. I remember my speech teacher as a child being kind and encouraging as I progressed, but the negativity I heard from peers and adults overshadowed those memories. 

I knew there was a possibility that my speech was typical, but I didn’t expect that my speech would be atypical in a positive way. The speech therapist was cautious not to make me feel like I was gaslighted. And in some, it would have been easier to hear that I had an issue saying “r” or that the way I told my name was intelligible, but it wasn’t.

They offered some strategies with words and sounds that I felt I didn’t say clearly. I could make a list, practice these words, record myself, and listen to get a true assessment of how I sounded. As we said goodbye, I felt admiration and respect for the two therapists.  They were kind, and I felt they truly wanted me to see my speech the way they heard me.  

I don’t feel proud of how I talk, but these two therapists gave me an important affirmation that set me on the path to accept and celebrate my speech.

I should feel proud of my speech. I went through years of speech therapy and figured out a way to correct many different sounds. Instead of growing timider in the face of negative comments from my peers and a negative self-image as a speaker, I pushed to become public speaker. As a result, I have brought meaning in a wedding toast, made hundreds of people laugh during delays in school concerts, and in a dedication of a piano affected a mother deeply as I spoke about how her son’s spirit would live on in our school through her gift. 

I am a great teacher, and one the reasons I am effective is because I am a great public speaker.

There are feelings about ourselves that we need to learn to accept and feel that we need to work to change. How I think about the way I talk needs work. I’m looking forward to making progress on this journey. I believe that the speech therapists are right.

I am a powerful speaker.

I don’t feel that in my heart, but I will.

This King’s Speech – Part 6

After about thirty years after my last session with a speech therapist, I found myself searching for a new one earlier this summer.

I wasn’t sure what I was looking for in the experience of meeting with a speech therapist. However, I did know that I wanted to do something about how I felt about my speech. I wondered if getting a professional opinion on my speech would help me better understand how I talked and how I could talk.

Maybe an evaluation would lead to speech therapy sessions that could give me more strategies to pronounce certain words more normally. Maybe I could improve the way I talked, and my perceived deficiencies would bring me less stress and anxiety. And maybe I would learn that there was nothing wrong with how I spoke and that this was all in my head. After spending my life uncomfortable with how I talked, this last possibility seemed unlikely.

There are a lot of speech therapists in my area, but very few who do adult therapy. So, as I looked through therapist websites, I chose one who had experience with children, adults, and English language learners. I liked how she wrote about her work on her website, so I gave her a call.

She didn’t answer, so I left a message. A week passed, so I left another message. I was ready to move on at this point, but I had a feeling that I needed to be patient. So I programmed her phone number as a contact in my phone to make sure I would recognize her when she called me back.

The following week she did.

I was hanging out with Lucas when she called, and I was excited to greet her. First, she apologized for not returning my call earlier. She had just returned from a trip and was catching up on things. Then, after introducing myself briefly, she explained that she didn’t have much time to talk and wanted to schedule a more extended phone call. I said that was fine. Then, she asked me to go a little deeper into why I wanted to meet with a speech therapist.

I told her about struggling to be understood as a child and having speech therapy. I explained how some sounds still feel challenging to say and that I substitute words to avoid saying words with “r” sounds. I talked about people mishearing my name when I introduce myself.  She asked me about my work, so I told her about my school and students.

I noticed that half an hour had passed, and I wondered about what she had said before about only having time for a brief phone call. After I came to the end of a thought, she told me that while she didn’t hear any speech issues over the phone, and she said I was very articulate.  However, there were possibly things she was missing and that she would be happy to meet with me. She explained that she wanted to do my evaluation with another speech therapist because my case was unique, and she felt that this would benefit me the most.

I told her this sounded good.

A couple of weeks later, I walked into her office, and after a brief chat, the evaluation began.

This King’s Speech – Part 5

I don’t remember the first time someone younger than me inspired me.

When you are a child, everyone who inspires you is older than you. As I got older in life, people who do extraordinary things starting being younger adults. The more I taught, the more inspired I became by my students, and now my children inspire almost every day.

I knew Amanda Gorman was special before the inauguration. I wanted to prepare my students for the musicians and songs that would be included during the inauguration. One name I noticed was the poet Amanda Gorman. I researched her on the internet, and I was blown away. About a week, I witnessed the greatest poetry reading performance I had ever seen in my entire life at the inauguration.

There is so much about this performance that is inspiring. Gorman’s performance and her words were rich with meaning. As the media talked about her and interviewed her, something I didn’t expect came through as part of her story: Gorman had a speech impediment.



I had heard of people talking about overcoming speech issues like stuttering. James Earl Jones and President Biden both talk about how this speech impediment had affected their lives. But I never heard someone talk about the speech impediment I had.

Gorman had a lot of issue with the letter “r” and “r” sounds have always been an issue for me and continue to bring me anxiety.

After hearing Gorman talk about her speech impediment, I thought for the first time in my life about talking openly to people in life. I envisioned myself talking to my students about my struggles, relaying this part of my life when people ask me about my childhood, and talking to my children about what it was like to grow up and struggle to say my name.

Spoiler: I haven’t done any of these things. BUT I have blogged about my speech impediment, and even thinking about having the bravery and sharing the vulnerability that Gorman did in talking about her speech impediment IS progress.

Amanda Gorman did so much when she shared her poetry and herself with America. She is a reminder that the people we can inspire are children and those older than us. And she is also a reminder that the ability to inspire has nothing to do with age. If we listen and look into the eyes of those younger than us, we can see a better vision of ourselves and our future.

This King's Speech – Part 4

When I was a child, I didn't really know how to talk about my speech impediment. Honestly, as an adult, I'm really sure how to talk about it.

So, when my peers would ask me about speech therapy or how I talked, I didn't always know what to say.

My speech therapy occurred in my school during the school day. Sometimes it happened during reading or math class. I remember it sometimes bleeding over to recess time, though I didn't mind missing a little recess for this work. Kids would ask me why I was leaving class or coming to recess late, telling them that I had speech therapy. Most kids had no idea what I was talking about, and if they would ask more questions, I would just tell them that my speech teacher helps me with my "s" sounds.

The more challenging moment was when my peers would comment or ask me about my speech impediment.

I remember some kids mocking me for my speech impediment. They would try to imitate the way I talked. It was hurtful and awkward. There were moments in school when I would forget that I had a speech impediment, and I would let the thoughts rolling around in my brain come up, and then someone would mock me, and then I would stop talking and pull back into my shell.

Hurtful and confusing in a different way was when my peers with no negative intention would ask me if I talked the way that I did because I had an accent.

I have never been ashamed of my parents' accent, but I didn't think I had one. Even at a young age, I was fed the idea that people with accents, especially Asian accents, were somehow inferior. On the other hand, people talked about some European accents are attractive or cute.

I never remember hearing someone say that about an Asian accent.

I would respond to that question that I didn't have an accent, but then I wouldn't know what else to say. Would it help to say that I had a speech impediment? Is this someone how better than having an accent? I mean, admitting that I had an accent is something that most people could comprehend more easily. My discomfort probably had a racial aspect. A Caucasian child with a speech impediment probably wouldn't be asked if they had an accent as I did.

Later in life, when I had more confidence in my speech, my mouth caught up with the speed of my brain so dishing out a comeback at a quick pace was no problem. People mocking me in college rarely got away unscathed, but it was different when I was a child.

We rely so much on talking for social interaction, and when peers perceived me as lacking in this way and I was called out for it, I couldn't really reply well with weak speaking skills.

I just had to take it.

At times it was hard, but it didn't beat me down because knew that I could do something they couldn't. I may not have felt comfortable talking in front of them, but my other voice, my music, I had no problem showing the world.

This King’s Speech - Part 3

I have trouble saying my name.

I remember one session with my speech teacher when I was in elementary school, where we tried to make a list of challenging words for me to say. I was having a hard time coming up with a list of words. I was still new to speech therapy, and quickly my teacher sensed the flaw in this activity. To tell her words that I couldn't say correctly, I would have to say them incorrectly, which I didn't want to, so she changed approaches quickly.

She started saying words and asking me to say "yes" or "no" if I had issues saying them. Each time I would admit to saying that I couldn't say a word right, she explained what that word was difficult to say with a lot of empathy. I remember being surprised that someone else understood that talking was hard and that there were specific reasons why certain words were more complex. Then, as our list grew longer, she asked, "How about your name? 'Kingsley.' Your name has different sounds in it. That's a pretty hard to say, isn't it?" I looked away, not wanting to make eye contact, and nodded.

The main sounds I struggled with were "s," "l," and "r," and having two of three right together, along with "g," was something I couldn't really handle saying clearly as a young child.

I was a shy child, and I probably would have been shy if I didn't have a speech impediment. However, having this condition probably made my shyness worse. When my parents encouraged me to greet people most of the time, the first question I would get was, "what is your name?" I would struggle to say my name. Most people wouldn't understand what I said. Partially because I had an unusual name, it was more difficult. If my name was "Michael," and I couldn't pronounce it clearly, there's a pretty good chance people could figure it out. With "Kingsley," not so much. Even on the third try, most people wouldn't understand me, so my parents or brother would jump in and help out.

Did I avoid meeting new people and introductions because I had anxiety around saying my name? Yeah. Do I still? [exhale]

I can say my name clearly now if I slow myself down and focus. About half the time, people ask me to repeat myself or give me that look, letting me know they didn't quite catch my name. It's not a good feeling, but I've gotten used to blowing past that and moving on. Often, people comment that they like my name, so that helps balance out the negative feelings at the moment.

I love my name.

Having a unique name reflects all of the awesomely amazing things about me. I love that my nickname is "Kings" and it sounds like my Mandarin Chinese first name "Chin."  It always takes me more effort to make sure people hear my name right from me, but maybe that helps me not take my name for granted. My name is a beautiful gift from my parents. I honor them and myself by treating my name with care. I've never wished for a different name. I wouldn't give up the pronunciation challenges because I can't imagine not being a "Kingsley." 

This King’s Speech - Part 2

People who speak with an accent, or what some people call “broken English,” have a superpower that many other Americans do not.

They can speak another language.

I understand the xenophobia and racism behind those who mock people who speak with an accent that reveals that they speak another language, but there is no logic to this. People who speak more than one language have a dramatic advantage in the pursuit of making meaningful human connections.  With fewer language barriers, more of the world is open to multilingual people.  This gives them the potential to have a more profound understanding of the human experience.

My parents have that superpower. They speak Mandarin Chinese and English.  They can think in more than one language too and can effortlessly switch between languages mid-sentence.  Also, they can move around in different Chinese dialects and even speak a little Japanese. Even after living in America using English as a language for over forty years, there are words they mispronounce. This isn’t a flaw but a feature of what it means to be bilingual. There is nothing to be ashamed about.

I am not bilingual; I don’t speak Mandarin Chinese. I can understand quite a bit. My parents had me do some work in weekend Chinese school, but they didn’t prioritize this part of my education. They didn’t want me to have an accent. While I know now that more often someone raised in America who learns another language as a child doesn’t develop an accent, I understand my parents’ concerns when I was a child. My parents came to America to be American, and language was one way they felt they could be American. So this was a priority they had for my brother and me.  Having an accent as an immigrant didn't benefit them, so they didn't want this in hinder me. 

When I think about the stumbling around as I speak, and memories and trying to talk and being misunderstood, I know that this is something that my parents have dealt with for most of their adult life. I’ve never heard my parents complain about this, but I’m sure, like racial microaggressions, this is something they have learned to absorb and work through. It may be a minor annoyance one day, but it can take a lot out of a person over forty years. It can take a lot out of life. This is part of their immigrant story, and this is part of my story too.

My parents’ model is probably why I’ve never complained about having a speech impediment. I don’t remember giving my therapist any resistance when I’d pulled from classes to do sessions. This was part of my life. I was aware of other students not needing to go to therapy and sounding “normal.” While peers mocked me for my speech impediment, I felt more left out because I wasn’t as athletic as other boys when I was in elementary school.

In the book “Far From The Tree” Andrew Solomon talks the tension between identity and disability. If someone has a hearing issues that they want to address through a cochlear implant, they see this as a disability. A person who has hearing issues that they do not want to “fix” because they feel included and fluent in the American Sign Language community sees this as part of their identity. What some people view as a disability, other see as an identity.

Right now, I don’t see having a speech impediment as part of my identity. Instead, it is something I want to “fix." However, having this issue has undeniably shaped my identity in a far more positive than negative way.  It has brought me closer to understanding my parents, and...well.  I can't think about another way it has helped me, but it feels like it has.  Clearly, unpacking all of this is a journey, so thanks for riding along on this one. 

More to come...

This King's Speech – Part 1

During my wedding, some of my older family members were surprised to learn that I was a teacher. It wasn't because I was a music teacher. They all knew I was a musician from a young age. That part wasn't a surprise.  They didn't expect me to be a teacher because of my speech impediment.

How could a young boy who very few people could understand grow up to do a job which required him to talk?

In the past thirteen years, I've shared, unpacked, and processed almost every part of my life, from my feeling about masculinity, diversity, race, and puppies. I've talked about my high school day, college days, and life as a teacher. I laid my insecurities bare about being a parent and an American citizen.  However, I've never written about or hinted at a part of my life, a part of my identity that shaped my childhood and impacts my life every day.

I haven't embraced having a speech impediment as part of my journey and my identity. I'm not ashamed of it, but I don't have pride when I think about how I've dealt with this part of my life. I don't think about it most of the day, but there's not a day that I don't. Earlier today, I said a word, and Diana, my wife, said, "what?" hinting at me that she didn't understand what I said. I tried again, it still wasn't clear, so I chose a different word. There was nothing mean in Diana's tone, and I appreciate that she wanted to understand me.  I wanted to be understood, but that word, starting with an "r," I couldn't say clearly at that moment.

When I write speeches, I often edit them when I practice them out loud. My written vocabulary is different than my spoken words. For example, if I were to speak the previous two sentences, I would change them to:

When I compose speeches that I have to give, I often edit them when I say them out loud. This is because the vocabulary I use when I type is different from what I use when I speak.

I do this without thinking for the most part when I talk. After years of trial and error, I have figured out which words I stumble over, which words cause people to ask "what?" and which words have led people to imitate me and mock me. These words I unconsciously avoid as an adult. For the most part, people don't notice because I am gifted with a quick mind, and I have a lot of practice making it through the mine field, spoken language.

Some of this is more in my head. My pronunciation of words is not as bad as I believe it to be, but the negative experiences of childhood cast a shadow that will never entirely go away. I will never fully be free of the doubt I have in my ability to speak.

The thing is that I love public speaking. I have spoken at funerals and weddings. I have given presentations in graduate school and at conferences. I've used the power of my spoken word to persuade and inspire. I've given numerous speeches in front of my school community, often with over nine hundred people. I love speaking to my students and taking them on a journey through my words to other worlds and towards a deeper understanding of themselves.

It didn't always feel this way. I hated the idea of talking in school as a young child, but I always felt comfortable talking to my parents...