By Erica Pederson of Independent Excellence Tutoring, professional tutoring in Seattle for all school subjects between K-12. They’ve also helped adults improve their English with ESL lessons and classes.
If you are a non-native speaker with a heavy accent, you may wonder whether or not you can truly improve your speech. My students have come from many different backgrounds. Frequently, they have had speaking difficulties in their native language also. Others speak English in a way that is understandable to most people, but they only want to polish it and sound as American as possible for business reasons. Some students are over forty, some under, which also makes quite a difference. Here are some examples of student difficulties and methods I have used to help them. Read on to decide for yourself if private lessons or the class I will be offering in the winter could be a good fit for you.
What do you do if you had difficulties in your native language also? I have had students from both Russia and Japan who complained of having problems since their childhood or teenage years. Here’s the good news: most of these problems are simply mechanics. My students who struggle with the “r” are typically holding their tongue in an incorrect position (by American standards). The same is true for “l.” Though it takes work and ongoing practice at home, these changes are as simple to make as building your bicep muscles. It’s all about practice and getting qualified feedback as the sound develops. Sometimes students need to persevere with lessons for considerable time, perhaps a year, and even longer. Often students come back to me for tune-ups too!
For those who already speak English well, it is only a matter of learning the American accent rules. Did you know that “t” becomes a “d” sound when it is surrounded by vowels? Did you notice that everyone says “Seadl” not “Seattle” with a strong “t”? There are many very specific rules that can change your speech. Students who have an easier time with language often breeze through one rule after another, and before they know it, their friends are asking what happened to their accent.
Middle-aged and older students often believe that improving their speech will be impossible at this point. Having had a heavy accent for many years, they believe they will not be able to break the old patterns. It is true that it is much harder for older people, yet at the least, learning rules of the accent can greatly improve a person’s listening skills. For instance, knowing the “t” rule above could help a person hear the word “data” (dada) when it’s spoken quickly. Another example is the reduced “h.” Many times Americans drop the “h” in small words like “her” and “he.” Maybe an older person is used to hearing “What’s'iz name,” but could be confused when someone says “Didee do it?” The practical and specific rules that are available now can make a tremendous difference. And though the process may take longer for an older person, improving listening skills paves the way for improved speech. What you hear is, eventually, what you will do.
So yes, it is very possible to make significant changes in your speech if you are a non-native speaker. I will be giving a 3 hour workshop through the UW Experimental college on December 7th called Reduce Your Accent (it will help you speak english with confidence). Try it out if any of the above sounds interesting. It’s an inexpensive way to see what this accent stuff is all about. I will be having an 8 week class in the winter, and I always do private lessons from my home in Northgate for those with more personal speaking difficulties. I also often cover advanced grammar (especially the small words like a, an, the and in, on, about) while working with speech.
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