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If you are a foreign born professional, we would like to hear from you. We are very interested in the story of how you have created a successful and prosperous life in the United States.
We would be happy to feature your story in a future issue.
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trOur Mission is to help our clients transform their accents from a communication barrier to a charming cultural flavor using "listener friendly" speech.
Order Mastering Meaning from Lulu.com today online. For an autographed copy contact Judith Bergman through our web site. (Pay for autographed copies with check by mail or credit card phone order only). $19.99 + S & H and applicable sales taxes.
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We provide a level of expertise, analysis and support not possible in a self-study program!
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Triangle Speech Services is a small company of licensed speech-language pathologists (SLPs) who specialize in foreign accent and regional dialect modification and related communication skills.
Ask any plumber, carpenter or electrician how many "unfinished" (meaning "failed") do it yourself projects they have been called in to fix, redo and/or finish! This is not to say that many of you may actually be quite skilled and have the time to complete these kinds of home renovations.
There are some excellent accent modification programs "out there" that are sold directly to the general public with a self-study option. I use three of these as client materials. My main program, the P-ESL (Pronouncing English as a Second Language), is sold ONLY to professionals who have had specialized training in its use!
So why not try to do it yourself? Read the following excerpt from an email I received this week from Prof. T, Ph.D. from the Ukraine who teaches in a business school in an area university. He has recently completed the P-ESL program. Note the statements we have put in bold print to highlight the benefits of skilled instruction and see if you can deduce some "dangers" of doing it yourself.
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"I would like to THANK YOU  for the excellent and hugely educational and eye opening course. Looking back, I got much more out of it than what I had expected including many positive outcomes.
"First, it was hugely beneficial that you started with a thorough test of my abilities, identified problem areas, and tailored the program to my needs. That made it much more efficient. By directing our efforts where they were needed most, we could achieve much more in a short time, than what we could have, had the course been "one size fits all." "Second, the exercises you devised were very effective. For example, when you showed me those sound wheels, I first thought that was "baby stuff", yet they turned out to be extremely helpful. "Third, and this is a big thing, the fact that we used practice logs and that I had very specific, measurable and attainable goals each week was huge factor with respect to motivation, organization and discipline. I have no doubt, if my homework assignment were more general and didn't specify each of the small steps I had to take each day, I would have procrastinated more and ultimately accomplished less."
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"What surprised me the most
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 were two groups of challenging sounds: The first were the sounds that I seemed simply not capable of producing because they were not in my native language. What I pronounced was a completely different sound. Things like voiced TH, "Luke" vs. "Look," etc. - in the beginning, my brain, ears, mouth simply couldn't process those sounds and I would produce something completely different every single time (D for TH and so on). Basically, using your special drills, I had to train my muscles to move correctly to make those sounds. "The second,equally surprising group were the sounds that I am fully capable of pronouncing correctly. I simply didn't know I was making a mistake and habitually using a different sound. An example would be the "ee" instead of "ih" at the end of words like "basically." I can certainly say these words correctly! It's just that until you pointed out the problem, it didn't even occur to me that I was putting an "ih" there, and not "ee." I just had to "undo" many of my Ukrainian speech habits and reprogram myself through practice and self-correction to put the correct sound in those words. " "Thank you again for your instruction and guidance. I hope I'll have a chance to be back for an advanced course some time later."
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Here is what you DON'T get in self-study programs:
|  1. A skilled, analysis of your speech patterns including intonation, grammar and knowledge of common idioms. Post-testing to measure improvement with follow-up recommendations.
2. An individualized, prescriptive curriculum that is enhanced by materials from other programs.
3. Step by step instruction, demonstration and feedback by a licensed speech-language pathologist who is a native speaker of Standard English with many years of experience and expertise in working with the speech mechanism as well as specialized training and seven more years of helping individuals reduce their foreign accents.
4. Practice logs that you pass in to your instructor at each session, keeping you motivated and accountable and promoting optimal improvement.
5. Specific instructions to "catch and correct" yourself in conversation as an important step in permanently replacing your accented speech "habits" with correct Standard English pronunciation "habits."
In summary: you really don't know what you don't know and you won't hear it in your own speech. "Dangers" might be a strong word but quite a few of our clients have come to us after wasting time and money trying to reduce their accents through self-study.
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We invite you to click on Triangle Speech Services to visit our informative website. Our goal is always to provide information, inspiration and encouragement since these are essential components of any successful learning experience. If you are seriously considering enrolling yourself or an employee in an individual tutorial with us or simply want to talk to us about our programs, please contact us through the contact page of our web site. Sincerely,
Judith L. Bergman M.A. CCC-SLP
Speech-Language Pathologist and Corporate Speech Trainer
Founder & Director of Triangle Speech Services |
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