Improve Communication Through Accent Reduction

 Once you’re aware, you’re half way there

A strong accent can make business life extremely difficult. If clients or colleagues can’t understand what is being said to them, communication issues and misunderstandings will ensue.

It is often the case that an employee’s spoken English is considerably weaker than their written communication. This is a shame, as it means they are incapable of working to their full potential.

Softening an accent requires a lot of commitment and hard work, as it involves going against natural instincts and responses. Having said this, with a bit of effort on the part of the student, it is certainly achievable.

Accents are apparent in the following instances:

• Sentence/ word stress is different
• Vowel sounds are shorter/ longer
• Consonants are stronger/ weaker/ unidentifiable
• Pace and rhythm is different
• Intonation is different
• The throat is not in use
• Tone is different
• A different part of the mouth is used
• Tongue, teeth and lip positioning is different
• Individual sounds are not pronounced correctly (due to any/ all of the above)

Our trainers make students aware of their problems and then devise plans to correct any errors that are being made. Daily practice then helps the student to adopt the new way of speech- this can take anything from 3 months to 2 years, depending on the level of accent reduction desired.