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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 master the rules of spoken English grammar!
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Go to our Archive Home Page to read more fascinating newsletters.
ESL Speakers: Enroll in Ms. Bergman's Duke U. Evening and Weekend Courses Workshop, The Sounds of English, Course I.D. 11782, Saturdays, Sept. 20 & 27, 1-4 PM. $140 ($125 by 9/5). Limited to 16 students. The link will take you to Duke U. Continuing Studies for registration.
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We at Triangle Speech Services are licensed speech-language pathologists (SLPs) who specialize in foreign accent and regional dialect modification.
This month's "My Story" was contributed by a Ph.D. level engineer from Thailand whose simplified and often incorrect spoken English grammar in our initial telephone interview gave no hint of his brilliance.
My colleague and founder of CORSPAN (Corporate Speech Pathology Network), Katie Schwartz M.A. CCC-SLP who owns Business Speech Improvement in Chattanooga, Tennessee "asked a group of HR managers about how they view poor grammar and diction in applicants for jobs and ALL said that if the job required contact with the public (and sometimes if it did not) applicants with poor skills in those areas would be viewed negatively. One said that if the applicant was already there for an interview, the actual interview would be over 'in one to two minutes' but that as a courtesy, he would keep the applicant for the standard twenty minutes."
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MY STORY by T.B. Ph.D.
[T.B. is a gifted scientist whose spoken English grammar sounded very "primitive" to the ears of a native speaker. T.B. had studied Englsh intensively in Thailand and achieved high enough test scores to complete all of his graduate studies in the U.S.]
I am an engineer from Thailand with an M.S. and Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering earned in the U.S.
I didn't feel that I had a problem with communication until I went to work in a small town where I realized that I had a severe accent because my colleagues didn't understand what I said. I tried to solve the problem by speaking slowly and using simple words. In the meantime I was looking to improve my English pronunciation, but I couldn't find an instructor in my area.
During my career transition, I moved to Durham. I found Triangle Speech Services on the Internet and called Ms. Bergman for more information. I asked for references so she contacted some people who had already worked with her and they spoke with me. I was convinced that she could help me reduce my accent so I started training with her. She found that I had a severe accent especially for the "r," "th," "s," and "v," sounds, and reversals of "sh" and "ch," confusion of "r" and "l," and I also distorted vowels and left out word endings. In addition to practicing the Compton exercises, I spent a lot of time working on the correct pronunciation of key words used in my specialized research and development activities.
Also, when she transcribed my spontaneous language, Ms. Bergman noted many grammatical errors. Even though my written grammar was good enough for me to make a high score on the TOEFL, in my spoken English I left out articles, forgot to inflect noun plurals, used incorrect prepositions, left out past tense ED endings or didn't use irregular past tense (eat/ate), left out verbs like "is" and "are," and did not use the correct word order when I asked questions. I was focused on what I was saying and not how I was saying it.
As a result of the training, not only did my accent improve, but also my awareness and use of spoken grammar. I practiced exercises in a self-study grammar book, always outloud. I wrote out a script for my telephone interviews and rehearsed job interviews with Ms. Bergman. I gained confidence when I talked with Americans, was invited for in-person interviews and got a job in my field.
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Grappling with Grammar
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 All languages are rule-based as are their spoken versions but the rules are different for each language! ESL speakers often have to learn to use a very different set of rules from those of their native language.
The Thai language has very simple grammar with no tenses, suffixes, plurals, genders, subject-verb agreement or articles such as a, an and the. The basic sentence structure is subject/verb/object with adjectives following nouns. Thai uses tones to differentiate meaning with four tone markers, five tone sounds and five distinctive pitches. ("Thai Speech Acquisition" by Lorwatanaongsa, Preeya and Maroonroge, Sumalai, pp. 554-565 in The International Guide to Speech Acquisition, Sharynne McLeod, Editor, New York: Delmar, 2007.)
During our initial P-ESL evaluation we administer a supplemental multiple-choice spoken grammar screening test and we transcribe the grammatical errors we hear in the sentences composed by the client for the 66 test words and in an interactive conversational sample all recorded digitally. We then create a table listing error category, transcript and corrected version and include this with our initial evaluation report. We address errors in grammar and syntax during sessions as time permits and also incorporate extensive self-study assignments using Grammar In Use:Intermediate by Raymond Murphy, Cambridge University Press 2004, 2007 (2nd or 3rd edition). We cannot emphasize enough the importance of using correct Standard English grammar in business settings, not just to get hired, but to advance in one's chosen profession. We are "tough" with our clients because the outside world will be "tougher."
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We invite you to click on Triangle Speech Services to visit our informative website. If you are an ESL speaker we urge you to look at Murphy's Grammar in Use cited above and take the study-guide tests in the back. If you are a corporate manager or HR specialist we hope you will make appropriate training opportunities available and will find this article from HR Compliance Law Bulletin, "How to address concerns over employees' accents" of interest. I thank my colleague, Lynda Katz Wilner M.S. CCC-SLP, founder and principal of Successfully Speaking in Baltimore, for this link. And again, we hope this month's newsletter has informed and inspired you!
Sincerely,
Judith L. Bergman M.A. CCC-SLP, Founder & Director
Triangle Speech Services |
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