Saturday, September 7, 2013

American Accent Video Training Program - Pronunciation





 

SESSION 2:  VOICING, S and Z 












Session 15. Reading Passages by jeffreythai



Introduction

Welcome!

Congratulations!  You are about to embark on a very exciting program.  Learning to speak English clearly, with proper pronunciation is the single most important skill you must have to communicate effectively in today’s world market. The Pronunciation Workshop Video Training Program will enhance your English speaking abilities and vocal skills, improve your self-confidence and will greatly increase your chances for success. This course is based on years of linguistic research and has produced dramatic results for thousands of individuals around the globe. It is designed to help you sound “more American” for oral presentations, interviews, teaching, business situations, telephone conversations and general daily communication.

When a person learns English as a Second Language, they are speaking English “filtered” through their first language.  They are using their native language’s “speech rules” of pronunciation (and often grammar) on their new language… They are not aware of the American set of “speech rules”.  This is basically what the Pronunciation Workshop program teaches you…  “The Speech Rules of American English”. There are many schools and classes which teach English all around the world; however, very few of them address the “speech rules” that you will learn in this course.  This is because many of the teachers who are providing English training, do not know of these “speech rules”.  Many of them are even making errors themselves and teaching them to you!  We hear this daily from our clients. When you were a child and learned your first language, you constructed a mental inventory of your native language’s speech sounds.  Those sounds became a part of your speech repertoire.  Unfortunately, you are now inserting these speech sounds into your English.  Today, when you speak English, you reach into that inventory and come out with many substitute sounds, something that is close, but nonetheless incorrect. 

These repeated errors in conversation often cause you to be misunderstood.  Some people call what we do “Foreign Accent Reduction”…this is not quite accurate, for you are not reducing your foreign accent...you are actually gaining an American Accent - - you are adding new sounds and new “speech rules” to your speech inventory. While you progress through this program, you will be learning things you were never aware of before.  You most likely will find yourself saying, “Wow!  I never knew that!”  Changing your old speech habits takes time.  At first you may possibly be apprehensive using the learned techniques.  However, eventually you will relax and the words and sounds will flow smoothly and clearly on their own.  Once you complete each session, it should not be your objective to start speaking differently right away.  Your focus should be on listening to the sounds of your speech and the speech of those around you.  For example, when you say “Tank you” instead of “Thank you”, your focus should not be on saying it correctly…but rather, “Oops – I just said that word wrong…I should have used a TH sound”.  It is this AWARENESS that will eventually lead you to the improved pronunciation skills you are striving for. Each video training session has its own accompanying chapter in this manual with practice material.  You will notice during the video classes that I often speak slowly and exaggerate certain target sounds.  I do this purposely so that you can ‘hear’ and understand what I am teaching you.   I recommend that you try practicing the material a little everyday using the learned techniques.

Practice speaking VERY SLOWLY, out loud, in a strong voice and exaggerate the mouth movements.  You will be retraining the muscles of your mouth and tongue to move in new and different ways while mastering your new pronunciation patterns.   Theoretically, once you understand the concepts and have retrained yourself, eventually these new speech patterns will progress into your own spontaneous conversational rapid speech. To receive maximum benefits, we recommend that you take our course over a period of two to three months, focusing on one session per week.  Try to practice daily with the videos.   The program you are about to begin was created to help people “sound American” for the purposes of teaching, interviewing, lecturing, business and general daily communication.  Although America has many regional pronunciation differences, the accent you will learn is that of standard American English as spoken and understood by the majority of educated native speakers.  Changing your old speech habits takes time.  At first, the information presented on the videos may seem unusual, but eventually, you will see that these techniques will transform your speech, providing you with clearer, more intelligible English speaking abilities.

Good Luck and have fun!  I hope you enjoy this program as much as I enjoy teaching it!

Paul S. Gruber MS, CCC-SLP
Speech Language Pathologist



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