Immigrant professionals are taking classes at the University of Minnesota to improve their accents and communication skills. The director of the program says, ”We as Americans tend to make some judgments and assumptions about people’s credibility, their expertise and their education based on how we perceive them communicating,”
Participants understand that as adult learners they will never completely speak without an accent but they want to adopt ” a more American way of speaking” so that they can participate more fully in the workplace.
The classes are expensive though. Twelve hours of instruction cost $750.
Tags: accent reduction course, SHOP
