Practice practice practice

I have recently completed 8 sessions with an academic at Sydney University. His English is naturally already at a high level. However, there had been a couple of complaints that students found him difficult to understand. We worked on his specific errors and a lot of voice production as his speech was 'flat' with little moth movement. In the process we also worked on discourse markers, questioning and pausing.
This particular client improved greatly - why - because he practised regularly. A good pronunciation course will put you on the right track but practising, recording, listening and rerecording is the only way to improve.
If you or your company invests in pronunciation training make it worthwhile by practising 5-10 minutes every night for the duration of the course. it will make a HUGE difference.

Continuity with pronunciation training

If you have committed yourself to a pronunciation training course or your employer has committed company funds to your professional development you must try to make it part of your life for the next two months. Continual postponing of lessons will break the continuity and you will not progress.There is a definite progression of skills -it's like a jigsaw puzzle that needs to be fitted together. Once you have the outline and the basic idea the other pieces can be slotted in more easily. Too many gaps mean the need to go over the same areas again and again, which in itself is not a bad thing but in a 10 week course you only really have 20 hours of tuition.
I recommend that when you commit to pronunciation training - even if you find it very difficult and frustrating - keep at it as it only gets easier with practice.

I don't want to include a no cancellation policy as I know people have busy lives with work, children and living in a new country, but maybe i need to just to encourage peole to fully commit to a 10 week program.

Interrupting fluency

Most of my clients are professionals and work in positions such as business analysts, accountants, teachers, IT professionals or engineers. They all are very skilled and have been employed because of their professional knowledge. Their English has reached a high level of fluency even though pronunciation errors still occur.

Pronunciation training can change all this for a while. I always forewarn my clients that there will be a period when they feel they are getting worse before they get better. This is because they are becoming aware of their 'mistakes' and developing self correction strategies which of course interrupts fluency.

This is part of the process and will change in time. However it can be very frustrating. I also tell them that they are very skilled to be working at such a level bilingually but unfortunately pronunciation training often focuses on what they can't do rather than what they can do. It will often seem as they are still doing many things 'wrongly' when in fact they have made huge improvements in their clarity of speech.

As I said before, it is a continual and very gradual process and change will not happen overnight. My mantra still holds true - practice, practice and more practice. I also try and get my clients to 'be in the moment' for five minutes every day at work. This means that they should try and be completely aware of their pronunciation for five minutes every day as a means to assist the transition from classroom work to every day speech.