Accent Modification/Reduction
For individuals whose English is a second language and find it difficult to be understood in a professional setting, a speech pathologist can help with more clear and effective communication.
Accent Modification is for anyone who speaks English as a second language or was born outside of the United States. For motivated professionals who want to be better understood in meetings, by clients and colleagues. For anyone feeling doubtful in their communication style or skill and would like to build self-confidence or modify how they speak for professional development. For those who desire to interact comfortably with co-workers and individuals in social environments. After completing the training specifically designed for individual needs participants will experience 50% fewer communication breakdowns, furthermore they will continue to be successful in their endeavors well after the training is complete.
When speaking, are you asked to slow down or repeat yourself?
Does speaking in public or to new listeners cause you to feel anxiety, embarrassment, or frustration?
Do you feel uncomfortable participating in meetings, social gatherings or speaking up for something you want?
Has your accent prohibited your professional and/or social growth?
Services offered during Accent Modification/Reduction:
Articulation: Involves learning how to use the articulators such as the mouth, tongue, lips and jaw to produce clear and accurate speech sounds.
Pronunciation: Focus on the correct pronunciation of individual sounds in a language. It involves learning how to articulate the sounds, stress, and intonation patterns of the language.
Prosody: Focus on the rhythm, stress, and intonation patterns of a language. It involves learning how to use stress and intonation to convey meaning and emotion in speech.
Phonology: Involves learning the sound patterns of a language. It focuses on the relationships between sounds and the rules that govern how they can be combined to form words and phrases.
Fluency: Involves improving the flow and pace of speech. Includes working on reducing pauses, filler words, and other speech disfluencies.
Vocabulary: Involves learning and using the appropriate vocabulary and expressions in the target language.
Grammar: Involves learning the rules in the target language, including verb tense, sentence structure, and word order.
Vocal Warm Up: Includes vocal warm exercises that improves performance of the individual muscles of the thorax (chest), larynx and upper vocal tract (throat, mouth). Improving the quality of the sound made, helping the voice to flow more naturally. Furthermore, helping prevent vocal injury when using your voice extensively.
Breathing Exercises: This includes learning different breathing techniques to help you sustain and regulate your breath during a speech or presentation, which helps support your voice, decrease rate of speech and limit nervousness.
Express Yourself SLP PLLS is the only Accent Modification agency in the Manhattan area recognized by the Institute of Language and Phonology. I provide the Compton Pronouncing English as a Second Language (PESL) program, which is a proven method of accent modification techniques and pronunciation improvement for non-native and regional American English speakers. It is a highly-structured, evidence-based approach and studies demonstrate increases in pronunciation clarity and accuracy of at least 50% by the majority of clients who complete the training program. The PESL program begins where conventional English as a Second Language (ESL) courses end. All courses are completely customized to each client’s specific accent patterns and pronunciation proficiency level.
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