Blog – Accent Modification | Accent Reduction

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA): Why We Use IPA Charts During Accent Modification Training

When an accent modification student first sees the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) charts their eyes somewhat glaze over…they do have a pretty sterile, oddball look to them, I acknowledge that. Hmmm…are they really necessary for the learning process? I suggest, yes, they are really necessary. I refer to these charts frequently during lessons. I roll them out starting in the very first lesson, after the assessment. I teach the students the lay of the land of those charts – both vowel and consonant charts – and students relate to them, with increasing curiosity and ownership of their learning. It really does help.

The symbols are the merest bit unusual, but it always heartens me when a student starts warming up to the process, and voluntarily learns the symbols that are key to their individual accent modification. In studying together, the charts become a focal point for movement between and among sounds. A goal, an adventure, an effort supported by the documented reality called “pronunciation.” It seems to offer students the support of knowing they are not alone in this learning process, this strenuous effort for change.

I look forward to meeting with you, the student, or with your family member, friend, neighbor, or colleague, who is making the effort to modify their accent. Looking together at this system, these charts, these tools of reference and learning.

Accent Modification: Your Brain Takes Up the Cause for You!

brain-5 It happens with movie stars’ names, and it happens with the accent modification process. Okay, let’s start with the movie star: You’re trying to think of the name of a famous actress in a movie you just saw. You’re thinking, “She played the main character, she’s famous, in lots of movies, big smile…good grief… I can’t believe I can’t remember her name…” You think about it actively for about ten minutes, and then, frustrated, you give up, thinking, “Oh, well. It’ll come to me.” AND YOU’RE RIGHT! It WILL come to you! YOUR BRAIN DOESN’T GIVE UP!!! Your brain, frankly, doesn’t like ambiguity one bit.

At an odd time, OUT OF THE BLUE, like at 2 o’clock in the morning, or the next day while you’re having a lively conversation with someone about, say, the best fertilizer. And you shout, “JULIA ROBERTS! IT’S JULIA ROBERTS! Oh yay!” And you know, quite profoundly, that YOUR BRAIN NEVER GAVE UP ON THE PROCESS OF FIGURING IT OUT FOR YOU. Sure, the person you’re talking with about fertilizer won’t have a clue what Julia Roberts has to do with fertilizer, but, once you explain what just came to you, they’ll recognize the phenomenon. We all recognize the phenomenon: The brain takes up the cause.

That’s how accent modification works. The brain KEEPS working at the issue even when you’re not doing it actively. Once the brain knows what it needs to work on, it does it. It works between lessons. It works nights and weekends. It works while you are thinking about other things. The brain likes to makes things clear, so when you have decided to work on your accent, and we assess and go towards new sounds, the brain TAKES UP THE CAUSE.

Sometimes we will be working on a specific speech context (say, “r” in a consonant blend) and I notice something else that we needn’t focus on, but is important for you to get to work on. I’ll commonly say, “I’d like us to give this to your brain to work on. Don’t worry about.” And I explain what I think the brain would do well to take up the cause on, and your brain goes off and does it. It’s kind of like multi-tasking, but more truly brilliant. And next lesson, the student comes in, having made progress on that matter, without consciously working on it!

It’s a wonderful thing, really. And it’s based on real neurobiology, and on good, ongoing, repeated assessing of your speech, along with focused, clear, creative teaching, and an interactive learning process. Working together, all three of us: You, me, and your magnificent, active, lively brain.

I look forward to helping your brain take up your cause: being understood all the time!

English Pronunciation Assessment: How it Works

tutor-606091_960_720 So here we are, together for our first accent modification lesson. Yes, we’ve talked over the phone, but now we’re sitting together on Zoom, pens in hand, paper in front of us. Now what?

We’ll be talking, and I’ll be listening very closely, taking lots of notes, which you’ll be welcome to see either while I’m writing or after, but I’ll be explaining everything once the assessment is done. The questions I ask will be open-ended to encourage you to talk! I’ll be asking you to repeat things you’ve said so I can fully “get” what you’re saying and, more importantly, how you’re saying it: What is your tongue doing? How much voice are you adding? I’ll be asking questions that will elicit a broad variety of speech sounds so I can get a comprehensive idea of where you are now and where we need to go with lessons. I will likely ask you the same questions repeatedly, if I’m trying to be sure I hear how you’re saying something. I’m not listening to the content of what you are saying, so please not to take offense if I later do not remember something important you shared with me! It’s nothing personal! I’m just in “assessment/hearing” mode.

One thing I’ll be doing while we’re talking is preparing a set of priority phonemes (speech sounds that can change the meaning of a word) for you to modify. This list will likely be a mix of consonants and vowels (including diphthongs), and will be personalized to your speech patterns – not just based on what your native language is. The length of that priority set will depend on how much change you wish to make: Do you want to be understood all the time? Or are you planning to eliminate your “foreign” accent entirely? It’s a good idea for you to consider this matter before our first meeting, but, of course, you can change your mind at any point along the way after we start lessons. In fact, students fairly frequently do come into training thinking they want to eliminate their accents, and then decide to work towards being understood all the time, and vise versa.

And that’s how it works! A comprehensive conversation, lots of questions and repetition. And then the first, model lesson, right after the assessment, during our first meeting. So you can get a sense of how I teach, I can get a sense of how you learn, and then we see where we go from there. I look forward to meeting with you!

How to Ask Native English Speakers for Feedback

friend_woman_person_man_talking-180040 It takes a lot of people to help someone modify an accent towards Standard American English. My role: I meet with students once or twice a week, assess, teach, support, educate, help to motivate, problem solve when things get “stuck,” and then some. The student’s role: practice, listen to their speech, focus, expose themselves to native speech as much as possible, and – a major one here – ENLIST THE ASSISTANCE OF OTHER NATIVE SPEAKERS.

This last student role – enlisting the help of native English speakers – is crucial for accent modification students’ progress. With assistance from other native speakers, students get feedback – immediate feedback – and encouragement. How to enlist that assistance? ASK FOR FEEDBACK. Go ahead and ask. Most Americans are terribly hesitant to say to a non-native speaker, “That’s close but not quite an ‘l’ sound.” Most Americans just don’t want to embarrass a non-native speaker, or to come across as judgmental or mean-spirited. So Americans need permission to give feedback. We really do need that. If we don’t have that permission, most Americans will just nod and smile and pretend to know what is being said to us, or ignore the obvious mispronunciation. There is a wealth of help and support available in willing native English speakers who are invited to help accent modification students. Do, do, do take advantage of that.

Here’s what to do: Choose two or three people in your life who are native speakers of Standard American English. People you trust have your best interest at heart. People who speak English well, and are able to give pretty clear feedback. (Certainly choose standard American English speakers, as opposed to albeit good-hearted folks who have, say, British or Scottish accents.) These people can be friends, co-workers, mentors, supervisors, neighbors, librarians, anyone you trust. And – here’s another key thing – they do not need to be able to instruct you on how to make the sound correctly. They only need to be able/willing to let you know when it’s not quite “on.” If these chosen folks think they’re going to need to instruct you, they likely won’t try.

So go ahead and make a list of possible people to ask for help with your accent modification, and think about it for a while. It’s kind of a solemn contract you’re entering with this person – they will be agreeing to help you in this most significant, sincere effort you are making: to work towards being understood all the time. This is a sacred request, and will be met with, I hope, a sincere response of “Absolutely! I’d be honored to help!”

English Pronunciation Training: To Record or Not to Record?

SONY DSC “Should I record myself practicing accent modification?” I’m often asked by students. My response: “Yes, but rarely!”

Here’s when and why you might want to record yourself:

It can be helpful to record yourself reading a familiar paragraph when you are starting accent modification instruction. It gives you a good baseline of where you started in your pronunciation. Then go ahead and record yourself reading the same paragraph about two months after starting training, and then again another two months later, and so forth. You’ll hear a substantial difference from where you started! And it will tell you that change is possible and is happening. Hearing that change will encourage you in moments of doubt…”Have I really made that much progress?” That doubt is understandable and common, even when you are hearing from friends and co-workers that you’re making progress. It’s always helpful to hear it for yourself. You can trust it more.

But I always discourage students from recording themselves (both during lessons and outside of lessons) in order to catch their pronunciation mistakes. Why? Because your primary job, as an accent modification student, is to learn to listen to yourself – really hear yourself – while you are speaking. And if you become accustomed to relying on recording, that very important, key feedback loop is compromised – never developed, or developed inaccurately.

Here is some help towards catching your speech without using a recorder:

Practice listening to yourself while speaking. If you’re home alone and talking aloud, close your eyes sometimes to help tune yourself in more to your own speech.
Also try cupping your hands around your ears on both sides to amplify your speech by throwing it forward. You will hear how your voice tone is, in reality, so don’t be surprised if you are surprised by your own voice at first!
When you’re talking, you might occasionally pause and ask yourself, “How did that come out?”

When you do record yourself for that monitoring and celebratory process, keep the recording short (just a couple of paragraphs) so you don’t fatigue and lose your rhythm. And choose fairly simple, but interesting topics, something you’re familiar with, too. Like something from work, or a story you enjoy. Practice reading it a couple of times before you turn on the recorder so you hear yourself at your best. Remember to say the date at the start of your recording., so you can easily compare!

So pick up the recording device only rarely, to admire your changes and advancements. And TRUST that you can listen to yourself and catch what you need to catch. I’ll help you, through a variety of techniques, to develop that listening and catching ability. That’s a major part of my job with you. It will help you get where you want to go much faster.

Rolling with Your “R”s: For the Trill of It in Accent Modification!

pexels-photo-91227 Most of the accent modification teaching I do is with students whose first language is not English. But from time to time, a native English speaker asks me about how to acquire and consistently produce a solid trill. They understand that, in order to sound authentic in any language that uses the trill phonemically, they need to have it down. The trill is the rolling “rrrrr” commonly found in Spanish, and it can be very hard to pick up. I’ve had people say they’ve been trying for decades, and had given up. I’ve even had people tell me that they have been told to give up – that they are genetically unable to produce a trill. I don’t know if there is a genetic inability among some people to produce a trill, but I know I’ve never taught someone who had that. Or, if they had it, they were – by some miracle – able to change their genetics!! Amazing! <smile>

Everyone I have taught whose goal is the trill has been able to pick it up within one or two hours. Yes, it is effortful. Yes, it requires concentration. Yes, there is some sloppy spitting at first! (No worries!) Yes, it sometimes requires seven or eight different, creative approaches to grasp it, but those approaches all happen, in sequence, within a couple of hours. Seriously, there has always been a way, using the right approach. And, of course, the key is approaching it with humor and a depth of patience on both sides. And, at the moment of getting it – often surprised – the student produces a trill…”Is that it?!” Yes, that’s it! Celebration, disbelief..it’s a wonderful moment. “Let’s do it again!” we both say. They’ve got it and go off sounding authentic and accomplished. Because, after all, they – and their newly nimble tongue – made it happen, with some guidance. (Side note: the human tongue can seem like an entity within the mouth that can’t be tamed, that only does certain things and not others. The tongue has eight muscles, and all can be trained to do what is needed by the speaker!)

The keys to successful trilling are: the right amount of tongue tension, the correct tongue angle, the correct position of the tongue, and the best use of the air flowing out of the mouth at just the right time, and the adding of voicing to the process when those other elements are solidly in place. If you are practicing this yourself, pay additional attention to engaging your diaphragm, as this will help modulate/control the air that your tongue is going to catch. Yes, lots of loving parts, but very exciting once it’s been mastered!

So it’s rrrreally do-able! And it’s trrrruly trilling when it happens!