What is an accent?
When we learn another language, our mouths and tongues want to automatically bring some of the same movements and sounds from our native language to the new one, making it difficult to produce the new sounds correctly (this is called transfer). For this reason, many Spanish speakers learning English will have the same pronunciation problems, and we can expect that many English speakers learning French will share the same struggles, for example.
For adults learning a second language, it is the rare student that will learn to speak with no accent. More achievable goals, however, are through “accent modification” programs that are tailored to each student’s needs and that help him or her to move toward the attainable goal of more native-like speech.
English Solutions for Accent Modification
In order to begin an Accent Modification program, our consultants will perform a needs analysis to determine the specific pronunciation problems of the client. Some issues to be considered in the analysis are:
- Stress
- Intonation
- Rate of Speech
- Vowel/Consonant Distinction
After assessing your pronunciation and discussing your goals, we will develop an individualized program that will improve your pronunciation and increase your communicative effectiveness.
