• It should be one sentence.
• It should hint at information that makes them curious or shocks them and makes them want to hear more.
• It should dramatize the topic.

Accent Reduction: Why Your English Speech is Difficult to Understand Even Though You Live in an English Speaking Country

What you are saying:

“I have been trying my best to improve my English.  I went to an ESL class and I had a private English tutor about four times.  I couldn’t succeed.  I think I have a problem because I have lived in Canada for more than five years and I (think I) should be able to speak good English by now.  I think I should be  75%.”

That was a message from MCB.  She is like many people who have been living in the U.S. or other English-speaking countries.  They think they will learn to speak clear English by living and communicating with native-English speakers.

You may be like MCB. You know you communicate better now in English compared to when you first arrived in your new home of an English speaking country.  But your pronunciation is still accented with many sounds from your first language.  And people have difficulty understanding you.

Here is some information.  Your situation is like young people who watch their parents drive a car hundreds of times and think that should be enough to be able to drive a car themselves.  Funny, as adults we have all learned THAT is not true.

To learn to pronounce and make clear English, you need to train your brain and muscles to new movements and make different muscles strong.  Then your speech sounds will be pronounced accurately in English.

The problem is knowing what are the different movements of your tongue, lips, teeth, and jaw for your inaccurate speech sounds?  How stiff or tense do you need to make the muscles?   Which muscles do you need to make stronger?

Then you need to go about doing the actual training of muscles and brain.  Neuroscientists tell us it takes 1000 times of doing a new pattern just to get a mental trace in the brain.  They say it takes 10,000 times of doing a pattern before it is a habit.   And that is what you want – the habit of clear English speech.

That’s a part of the story to answer MCB’s puzzle about why she is not highly intelligible in English after five years in Canada.

People speak their accented and often difficult to understand English because that is what their brain and muscles know from the patterns of their first language.  To get to clear English takes training brain and muscle.  You need to learn what you need for movement patterns, tenseness of speech muscles, speed of muscles.  The cognitive knowledge is critical.  For most efficient learning, having a coach tell you exactly what you are doing right and wrong is critical.  It is all in the training.  Yay! You can improve.  It is wonderful to master a skill – especially clear English.  Communication and relationship.  That is what it is all about.

Be sure to watch our English Speech Tips videos and Accent Reduction Tip videos  for more English pronunciation and accent reduction exercise.

Rerun from 10/16/2013 and 11/23/2016

 

• Start at a point in time.
• The most memorable stories in any culture start with some variation of “once upon a time,” the same way a fairy tale begins.
• Describe that point in time.
• Then let it roll.

• Don’t explain the story (wrong way). Re-create it the way it happened (right way).
• Use dialogue.
• Make your audience see what you saw, hear what you heard, and feel what you felt.
• Make your point, and tie it back to your overall message.

Rerun from 09/30/2013 and 12/16/2016

Did you know this about foreign-born people in the US? 

For this last installment about interesting facts about people with English as a Second Language, here are data to satisfy your curiosity!

A recent study by the Pew Research Center indicates that Asians have recently passed Latinos as the largest group of new immigrants arriving to the United States.

Figures from the new U.S. Census data indicate a slightly faster pace of growth in the foreign-born population, which increased to 40.8 million, or 13 percent of the U.S.

Last year’s immigration increase of 440,000 people was a reversal of a 2011 dip in the influx, when many Mexicans already in the U.S. opted to return home.

Many of the newer immigrants are higher-skilled workers from Asian countries such as China and India.  Immigrants with bachelor’s degrees or higher rose by more than 4 percent to 9.8 million.

Other notable statistics:

• Nearly 35% of U.S. physicians are foreign-born
• U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics indicate that
  •  28.6% of US non-native born individuals held positions in management, professional, and related occupations
  • 24.6% were in Service occupations (in order of prevalence are food preparation and serving related occupations, personal care and service occupations, and  health care support occupations
  • 20% of Roman Catholic priests working in the USA were born in a different country.  Estimates are that 300 more arrive every year and that the enrollment of foreign-born men into U.S. seminaries is increasing yearly.

Be sure to watch our English Speech Tips videos and Accent Reduction Tip videos  for more English pronunciation and accent reduction exercise.

Rerun from Oct 9, 2013 and Nov 16, 2016

• An event you lived through or studied about that moved you. The more impact it had on you, the more impact it will have on your audience.
• If your story involves kids, someone else’s or yours, you can’t miss. Why? Kids are part of everyone’s experience. Kids are cute.
• The story can’t be merely a remembered event or a monologue about travel. It must have drama, tension and a “moment of truth” where someone’s decision causes success from failure. For example, did a stranger’s favor help you get to a crucial appointment on time?