people can benefit from pronunciation training if they:
- take an intensive one-on-one course
- practise
- make an effort to apply the strategies at work
it does take time, usually longer than the 10 week course which after all is only 20 hours of tuition. However, all of my clients have received feedback taht their speech is clearer and that they have improved their English.
I also teach a pronunciation class at the University of NSW. This is a class for overseas trained professionals. Currently I have 15 in the class. They are all very keen and a number of them practise regularly. The problem here is that there is little individual attention. By the end of the course they know what their problems are but most of the work still needs to be done. Of course, this option is a much cheaper option and there are other benefits such as gaining a nationally recognised cetificate and the use of the university resources.
One of my students in this class is from Sri Lanka and English is virtually his first language but people find it very difficult to undertand his 'accent'. He would benefit from individual tuition as little can be done for him in a large class.A lot of the workfor this student would be trying to change the pronunciaton of vowel sounds which can be very difficult and takes a long time.
So yes something can be done about your pronunciation. All you need to do is contact Pronunciation Matters!
