4 Key Steps to Improving Your American English Pronunciation and Accent 1. Become Aware of Your Mistakes You can’t improve something that you don’t know is a problem. The first key step in improving your pronunciation is identifying the areas that need to be improved. First, look at the sounds you may be transferring from your first language. For example: • my French students have a difficult time pronouncing “th” [θ] [ð], because it is not natural for them to put their tongue between their teeth. • My Chinese students need to put a lot of effort to learn Stress and Rhythm, which is not done in Chinese languages. • My Korean students need to work hard on their pronunciation of [I] vs. [iy], stretching their lips back into a smile position to make a clear [iy] sound and keeping the mouth central and relaxed for the lax [I] sound. Second, compare your pronunciation to a native speaker, preferably with the help of a teacher. This is NOT to sound perfect or to make yourself feel bad about the way you speak. This is simply to become aware of what sounds you can improve. 2. Learn the rules of American English pronunciation. There are plenty of rules that Americans do not even know that they use when speaking! We have little idea that we stress and de-stress words, change our pitch and speak in thought groups. The more you learn these rules, the more you know how to apply them to your own speech. Learning the rules of American English pronunciation can be done from a good textbook and from using online resources, such as elementalenglish/tag/pronunciation/. Knowing the rules of American English pronunciation will also allow you to understand English when spoken! 3. Practice, practice, practice! There is no secret to improving your pronunciation. What you need to do after becoming aware of your mistakes and learn the rules of pronunciation is practice American English pronunciation sounds — a lot! Repetition is key. This means that after you become aware of your pronunciation errors that lead to miscommunication, you must repeat the correct sounds over and over. You must become able to correct yourself when you make errors. This step is preferably done with the help of a native speaker or others who can correct your errors. You need to re-train your brain, muscles, jaw and tongue so that making the sounds of English becomes more natural. Think of it this way — if you wanted to lose weight and get in shape, would you go to the gym a couple of times and expect your body to change? No! You would need to workout over and over again, and gradually, over time, you will see improvement and changes in your body. It’s the same process for pronunciation improvement. If you become an active listener and an active learner, you absolutely can improve your pronunciation. 4. Know that it’s possible! With commitment, effort and practice, you can improve your American English pronunciation and accent. But it’s absolutely possible! Don’t believe the research or others if they tell you that it is impossible. I have seen the change with my own eyes (or heard it with my own ears!). With time and effort, your American English pronunciation can absolutely improve!
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 15:25:22 +0000
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