How To Learn Anglican Psalm Chant

When some of us were trying to learn Anglican Psalm chant, before we started on the Psalm we'd la-la the chant a few times. No doubt that's helpful but here's another approach:

In fact, when choirs are learning a new chant, one of the first things they will do is speak the words together repeatedly, until everyone feels and reproduces the same cadence at an ordinary reading/speaking pace. Next, they will sing the same text on a monotone, again striving to develop a unity of pace/diction/cadence for the lines of the text. Finally, they will add the actual notes of the chant, striving to keep the pace and cadence that was present when they were simply reading it in unison.

(From Jack's Pipe)

If you think about it, it makes sense to get to know the words before you try to chant them since the whole point of Anglican chant is that the words govern the music and the melody you've been la-la-ing is going to be different for every line anyway.