Why would you want to reduce accent? Accent is good. It reflects
differences in culture, background etc. Why would anyone want all
English speakers to sound like people of Mexican ancestry?  I understand
that pretty soon, the majority of Americans will be of Hispanic origin.
However, we should still preserve the Midwest accent, the New York/New
Jersey accent, the Bostonian accent, the Southern accent and all other
accents. As long as people can understand each other, it is good. If
some cannot understand accents beyond a very restricted region, we
should work on training them to understand a multitude of accents as
well as other languages. 

 

Andres

 

________________________________

From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Cross, Patricia
J.
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 9:24 AM
To: The Adult English Language Learners Discussion List
Subject: RE: [EnglishLanguage 1664] Re: Accent Reduction - Ideas for
SpecialTopics Discussions

 

At Even Start, we use a DVD named "Breaking the Accent Barrier"  by Dr.
David Alan Stern.  It is very good when trying to adopt intonation and
rhythm patterns of American speech.

 

Pat Cross

Oklahoma City Even Start

 

________________________________

From: englishlanguage-bounces at nifl.gov on behalf of JBaker3439 at aol.com
Sent: Mon 8/13/2007 10:25 AM
To: englishlanguage at nifl.gov
Subject: [EnglishLanguage 1664] Re: Accent Reduction - Ideas for
SpecialTopics Discussions

 

I'm doing work in a large hospital where there are employees who speak
English, but are very hard to understand, due to their heavy accents. 

 

I have decided to work with one employee who interacts with visitors and
patients entering the hospital. He's a very bright man from Argentina
who would like to move up the career ladder, but feels that this thick
accent is holding him back. It is very difficult to understand him, even
though he understands English perfectly.  

 

I told this employee that I wouldn't want him to fully lose his accent,
but am willing to help him with certain sounds that will help him be
more clearly understood.

 

During my years in adult and workplace education, I have helped many
with accent reduction on an informal basis.  However, I've never had any
formal training in accent reduction and would appreciate hearing what
others have done in terms of working with students and training
trainers.

 

Julie

  

Julie N. Baker
Workforce Skills Development
13805 Shaker Blvd., Suite #4A
Cleveland, Ohio 44120
216-561-1629
jbaker3439 at aol.com





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