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| TELL US YOUR STORYFeatured Article
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We would like to hear from you and are very interested in the story of how you have created a successful and prosperous life in the United States.
We are featuring one such story in this issue.
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OUR PROGRAMS
Transforming
accents from
communication
barriers to
charming
cultural flavors!
Individuals-Groups
Basic Level:
Compton P-ESL: 2008 Revision!
Specialized:
Medically Speaking
Regional Dialects:
Speak Standard, Too!
Idioms:
MIAE (Mastering the Idioms of American English)
Advanced:
MEEC (Mastering Effective English Communication)
RULES for Medically Speaking (Rules for Using Linguistic Elements of Speech)
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We are passionate about helping our clients speak English clearly and with confidence! YOU CAN DO IT and we will help you! You can transform the frustration of not being understood into a learning experience!
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We at Triangle Speech Services are licensed speech-language pathologists who specialize in foreign accent and regional dialect modification.
This month's "My Story" article highlights the sometimes comical yet always stressful and repeated experiences of our clients of not being understood even when saying the simplest things in basic English. Speech professionals call these experiences "Communication Breakdowns."
Scientifically, these can be defined as acoustic signal distortions or speech sound pattern alterations that are significant enough to block or delay auditory and hence "meaning" recognition by the listener. During instructional sessions, we actually illustrate these for our clients on our laptop using MAC "Garage Band" software configured to record, playback and show the wave form patterns of speech--both the client's and the instructor's. This helps to objectify the frustrating experience of not being understood and enables the speaker to implement strategies to "repair" these daily breakdowns.
In response to the anecdotes shared by Ms. N. in her story, we are offering an analysis of how a native speaker of Hindi might make the word "water" sound like "vodka" as well as suggestions to help both speakers and listeners skillfully turn miscommunications into learning experiences in our article, Turning Communication Breakdowns into Learning Experiences.
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MY STORY by Ms. N.
[ Ms. N. is a Human Resource professional from India whose native language is Hindi. She is highly educated, hard working and has a wonderful sense of humor. While she is coping skillfully with communication breakdowns, she is determined to succeed in modifying her accent and improving her intelligibility to native speakers of American English. ]
Everyone in my family has always been comfortable speaking English and the medium of instruction in my school and college was English. So, it came as a big surprise, when on my first international flight (to the USA), I asked for water and got Vodka! Alcohol is free on international flights; if they had asked me to pay, I'd have known what I was getting into. When this happened again, I realized the way I said "water" was different than how a native speaker of American English would say the word.
Here's one more: On my first visit to a Starbucks, I went to the counter and asked for a "cold" coffee, which is very common in India. The clerk said, "Excuse me" and I repeated myself. He said, "I do not understand you, ma'am." There was a line forming and I could sense everyone's impatience. I decided against getting a cup of coffee and started to leave the line when clerk asked me to write down what I wanted on a post-it pad. Finally, he gave me iced coffee. This story illustrates the double barrier of speech as well as custom. In the USA coffee is served either iced or very hot! (Now I ask for a regular cup of coffee and let it cool down!)
This was just the beginning. People would ask me to repeat what I was saying, especially over the phone. Sometimes I think they pretended to understand me when they really didn't. Over time, I learned to speak slowly. When asked to repeat, I would make changes and say the sentence using different words, but with the same meaning.
What I was doing on my own was not enough and I decided to seek professional help from Triangle Speech Services. After the first five lessons, I can already see the difference. Fewer and fewer people are asking me to repeat myself. Another big difference is that I can understand an "American accent" better than I could before I started the course. (In India my teachers who taught me English and who taught other subjects in English were natives of India and also spoke English with a British accent.)
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Turning Communication Breakdowns into Learning Experiences!
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 Analysis: When Ms. N. requested a glass of water, why did the flight attendant bring her vodka?
A native speaker would say "WAW der" stressing the first syllable, turning the plosive "t" into a light "flap d" in the same way he or she would say "butter" and "waiter" and, finally would say the unstressed "er" at the end. Native speakers of Hindi, Telugu and many other languages of India, reverse the pronunciation of "w" and "v," crisply aspirate "t" even in unstressed syllables in the British manner and do not have the "er" sound in their language. Also, they tend to stress all syllables fairly equally. Ms. N. probably said "VAW TUH" and, with the background engine noise, the attendant saw the "v" and heard the "uh" at the end and, voila, a glass of vodka!
Repair strategies for the speaker:
- Giving the listener permission to request clarification and to model the correct pronunciation
- Restating the message using different words
- Providing more context, even gestures (when not speaking over the phone)
- Spelling foreign names
Repair strategies for the listener:
- Respectfully restating what you thought the speaker said so that the speaker can correct you, if necessary.
- Saying, "Excuse me, would you mind restating that...spelling that...etc."
- NEVER pretending to understand when you don't. The ESL speaker will certainly realize what you are doing and will feel frustrated and discounted.
- If appropriate, take a co-worker aside and privately correct a repeated mispronunciation like "offisee" for "office" or "stop-pehd" for "stopped."
In our tutorials we have added the teaching unit, "Four Steps to Repair Communication Breakdowns" and try to objectify these, reduce the emotional stress and help our clients to stop dreading them and start turning them into learning experiences.
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We invite you to click on Triangle Speech Services to visit our informative website. We also want to encourage managers and colleagues of non-native professionals to use skillful and respectful strategies to repair communication breakdowns. Always remember that only about 9% of Americans are fluently bilingual. Ask yourself, "Who is the linguistically gifted individual in this conversation?" And again, we hope this month's newsletter has informed and inspired you!
Sincerely,
Judith L. Bergman M.A. CCC, Founder & Director
Triangle Speech Services |
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