When your customers don’t understand your frontline employees, it creates complaints, anger and loss of business. Heavy foreign accents, Ebonics, talking too fast, and sloppy speech cause listeners to become distracted or prejudiced, or worse - angry, especially if they are in a hurry. They tune out and focus on mistakes instead of messages.
Only three out 100 Americans articulate properly. Two thirds of the population need formal training in speech and articulation. This creates a problem for Spanish speakers (and other native language speakers) who come to America and listen to poor speech. They mimic poor English, like “gunna,” “dunno” and “wanna” and this is not acceptable coming from the mouths of “foreigners.”
The Problem is Not only Speech, but Listening. While people in Miami may be accustomed to deciphering foreign accents, people from Middle America are not. They cannot make out a single word because their ears are not trained to exotic accents. So our ears, not only mouths, need to be tuned and trained to decipher different accents. (Including Boston and Mississippi accents!) For this reason, I also include Listening Skills and “Tuning Your Ears” in my accent reduction classes.
The good news is that anyone can change and improve their accent, but it takes speech training, not English classes, to make a significant breakthrough. It takes practice. It takes determination and the right skills. Actresses and actors regularly practice this technique and any accent can be completely changed. You can learn techniques to correct your speech so people do not become angry, annoyed, or confused.
New York Times: "America is Ready For An Accent"
After one of my clients made the cover of Newsweek, the New York Times wrote an article that said, “She showed America that we are ready for accents, as long as they are not too strong.”
I Believe Ebonics is a Language
I treat Ebonics as if it were a language that deserves respect. In my opinion, it is special language challenge that should be considered equal to Spanish, French, and Chinese. For children, it is spoken at home and creates a sense of community. It has a rich historical significance in American History – it helped create a protective identity during and after slavery, and has fascinating linguistic roots in African languages. However, if African American adults are to succeed in a world where Standard English is spoken, their success rate climbs when they can shed the Ebonics at work and speak Standard English. I help African Americans overcome Ebonics with grace.
When I began teaching Accent Reduction in Miami in 2002, I made a surprising and shocking discovery. My Spanish-speaking students told me they never get a chance to speak English. At work, at the grocery store, at restaurants, they said,
“Everyone speaks Spanish. Even when we try to speak English, they understand we speak Spanish because of our accents, and they answer in Spanish. So many days go by that we NEVER speak English.”
My African American students report the same phenomenon: “Everyone in my community speaks Ebonics, so I never get a chance to speak clear Standard English. If I do, people laugh at me.”
This phenomenon poses a difficult challenge. At some point, I ask my students to stop speaking their native language, or seek out new opportunities to speak English.
“If your friends laugh at you for speaking English clearly,” I say, “find some new friends that won’t laugh at you.” For this reason, I created Accent Reduction Miami, which offers classes,
coaching and a social networking group so people can practice good English
together in Miami.
What Can You Do To Improve Your Standard English?
I recommend book clubs, volunteering, discussion groups, mentoring and joining clubs like Toastmasters that give you opportunities to practice. I also recommend public speaking classes, coaching and accent reduction classes. To find out about classes, contact me at
lisa@accentreductionmiami.com.
