Welcome back! Have you checked out my Accent Reduction classes yet? Many professional people need to learn to speak with an American accent quickly in order to do their jobs better. This article from the New York Times explains how some non-native English speaking professionals are using speech coaches to improve their spoken English. Many [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Online classes’
How Long Will it Take to Reduce My Accent?
When people are thinking about signing up for accent reduction training they usually ask how long it will take them to reduce their accent. Here is my response to that very important question.
Although most people will never sound like a native American English speaker, everyone is capable of reducing their accent and making their speech [...]
American English Pronunciation Classes
This is a great story about the power of pronunciation classes-
Foreign born scholars at the University of California at Berkeley found that spoken English is a tricky subject. Before the class, few of the scholars had help identifying their specific English pronunciation issues and how to overcome them. That’s why many of them were willing to pay [...]
American English Pronunciation-The Past Tense “ed”
Many people don’t realize that the past tense “ed” has three different sounds in spoken American English. These sounds are /d/ as in the word loved, /ed/ as in the word wanted, and /t/ as in the word stopped.
Correct pronunciation of these grammatical endings is extremely important if you want to improve your American English pronunciation. [...]
Pronunciation Glossary
When you take a pronunciation or accent reduction class your instructor will teach you lots of new vocabulary to explain the pronunciation features that you must learn. Here is a mini pronunciation glossary with words that I taught the students in my accent reduction classes this month.
1. Reduced speech-The relaxed pronunciation of commonly used words and phrases that [...]
American English Sentence Stress
When Americans talk they stress the CONTENT and FOCUS words in a sentence. That’s because these words are the most important for sentence meaning. English speakers will reduce the function words in a sentence because these words are not key to meaning.
In spoken American English each sentence or phrase contains:
A Focus word-the most important word
Content [...]
Accent Reduction Experts on Self Growth.com
SelfGrowth.com is the #1 self improvement website on the Internet and many professionals who want to help others with self improvement list their services here. Famous contributors include the Dalai Lama and motivational speaker Tony Robbins. They have e-newsletters in many areas such as success and communication that you can subscribe to for free.
Accent Reduction specialists listing [...]
Hospital Starts Accent Reduction Program for Faculty and Staff
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital has developed an on site accent reduction program. That way employees don’t have to go off-campus or pay expensive tuition at local universities or private schools for such training.
Participation is voluntary, however participants must pay about $2,300 to cover materials, software and equipment.
The most common issue for participants is that they’re imposing the characteristics [...]
Accent Reduction Classes Help Professionals to Succeed
Accent reduction teachers in Canada are working with immigrant professionals to teach them accent reduction techniques that will improve communication, reduce misunderstandings and help them get jobs and promotions.
According to one teacher-
“The people in our program have very good English skills, but sometimes their accent gets in the way of people understanding them in the [...]
