Scientist of the Year

I can now pronounce chlorophyll

Min Chen completed a 20 hour pronunciation course with Pronunciation Matters. She is an extremely good communicator. However, she did have difficulty with certain sounds such as /r/ and /l/. This was unfortunate as her main area of research as you can see from the article is chlorophyll - a very difficult word to say. It seems that she has overcome these difficulties and Pronunciation Matters extends our most heartfelt congratulations.

If you are at all interested please go to www.pronunciationmatters.com.au and go to our Resources page to find some /r,/l/ exercises

Improve oral communication in your workplace

Australia has a multicultural workforce and employees can benefit immensely from the linguistic, social and cultural diversity that workplaces offer.  However in the Australian workplace, effective oral communication in English is essential.

Research shows that low proficiency in oral communication is a major disadvantage in terms of levels of employment, workplace advancement, and workplace training outcomes.

Even small improvements in communication among co-workers can have a very positive effect on workplace morale, which in turn may have a positive effect on productivity and efficiency. This is particularly evident in demonstrating compliance with OHS regulations and effectiveness of team based work.

Australian workplaces need to be able to minimize the skills wastage caused by recently arrived migrants who are not being employed or working at their full potential. Policies and programs that reduce the time before skilled migrants are fully productive and using the skills they already possess can be beneficial not only to the employee but also to the Australian economy.

Maximise employees’ skills

Pronunciation training that incorporates workplace communication skills will help maximize the use of employees’ skills, especially those in supervisory, managerial and professional positions or who are ‘at the coalface’ in customer service positions.. This will also contribute to improved workplace efficiency and harmony.


Pronunciation Matters  customised pronunciation and workplace communication training which will increase the potential of employees who work in English as a second language and therefore lead to a more efficient and effective workplace.

Inspector Clouseau Accent

The senior police officer accused of being "more like Clouseau than Columbo" over the phone hacking scandal accused MPs today of acting like a "lynch mob" - and said he was discriminated against because of his accent. (London Evening Standard 13 July)

Attitude and assumptions can strongly influence the way we communicate with people. This is particularly evident when you hear a specific English accent or an accent from someone who is speaking English as s second language.. What are your stereotypical reactions when you hear an accent from South Africa, New Zealand, London, Liverpool or when someone from Japan, France or Germany is speaking English.? Many of these accents come with images or characters from film, television or books that lampoon a specific accent. Do you remember Pepe le Pew the French skunk and of course Steve Martin’s bumbling Inspector Clouseau.

The London Evening standard reported on the 13th July that The French senior police officer has been ridiculed not just for his accent but for his “Inspector Clouseau” accent.  According to the police officer, this discrimination has influenced the case against him

We are all guilty of mimicking a particular accent. This immediately makes the assumption that our own accent is superior in some way. Different styles of pronunciation or accents acquire a certain status or prestige within our own language, for example in Sydney we talk of a “North Shore” accent or a Western suburbs accent, even an Italo-Australian accent. These terms are very culturally laden with assumptions of higher income/well educated people, lesser educated or coming from a ghetto type background. When you hear that accent those assumptions come into play and affect your attitude towards the speaker.

For an accent to be superior to another there has to be a ‘norm’ that we use as the benchmark. For many years English Received Pronunciation (RP) was considered the norm. Nowadays RP is less likely to be considered the norm and accents from Australia, New Zealand and South African are now found, for example,  on local television by newsreaders. There is now a form of ‘international’ English which has become the norm. Often when listening to a global news story, it can be hard to tell if the speaker is from Australia, England, America or India. When I lived in France I aimed for this “international” accent, more for reasons of clarity and being understood rather than shedding my Australian accent.

English is the global language of business, diplomacy and finance so we hear English spoken with many different accents. If that is the case, in 2011 we should really be over this attitude of lampooning someone because of their accent when they speak English. If we have elevated English to this status we must expect the different varieties of spoken English and make the effort to understand Once I was out with a Canadian girlfriend who ordered a vanilla icecream and the British backpacker working behind the counter could not understand what my friend was saying. I rather pointedly said “She wants a vanilla icecream!” My friend and I looked at each other in disbelief as to why the girl did not understand her. Not only do we need to accept different varities of spoken English but we must make an effort to understand them.

Deborah Corbett from Pronunciation Matters, a consultancy teaching pronunciation to professionals who work in English as their second language says that accents are good and they are part of who you are. “You do need to seek help, however if your speech  is not clear and you are not being understood in the workplace. I often get clients who have a slight accent and complain that no-one understands them at work although their English is perfectly clear”

 I am certain that the French police officer’s case would have been influenced by his accent. I also find this totally unacceptable. If we elevate English to be the global speaking standard then we need to get over our prejudices.

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.

Case study of a student

One of my students was Korean and she worked for a financial company in Sydney. She was very good at her job but felt she needed to improve her pronunciation because new clients often couldn't understand her. She also had to give short sharp 'bios' when meeting with clients overseas or at conferences. These 'bios' were like the old elevator sales pitch about herself and who she worked for as well as her role in the company. A good first impression was essential in these meetings and a clearly and assertively delivered bio was very important.

After the initial detailed assessment of her needs, we incorporated all that we needed to work with by just working on her bios. This of course meant practising over and over again the same piece. This is not a problem as we could work on word stress of important work words, specific sounds and intonation patterns which of course then apply to general communication.

This was very successful and even though we spent most of the course on this bio her overall pronunciation improved as well.

This methodology is an important aspect of Pronunciation Matters work - using relevant workplace language as a means to improving pronunciation.

Hello and welcome

The reason I started my consultancy, Pronunciation Matters, was because I saw a 'niche' whilst working as a teacher for the State government run Adult Migrant English Program. I was working in the industry program and low level literacy students were being replaced by high level skilled migrants who had a good command of English but needed work on pronunciation and listening to fast 'Aussie speak'.

Two years later my idea is successfully continuing and I have worked with overseas trained scientists, teachers, engineers, IT workers, accountants and customer contact employees. They are all working at their professional level or just below. After a five or ten week intensive program they are well on their way to becoming much more confident with their communication at work.

The idea is not to get rid of their 'accent'. Accents are good and make life interesting. The main purpose is that their pronunciation 'errors' do not interfere with meaning. Some people, of course want to lose their accent. This requires a lot of work and practice.

This brings me to the other important issue about pronunciation training and that's practice followed by practice and yet more practice. You are 'unlearning' your mistakes and learning new skills so like any new skill you need to practise and listen to recordings of your speech.

Finally, the other important issue in pronunciation training is that initially your speech will become worse before it gets better. This is because you are breaking the cycle and introducing self correction. You are also focusing on what you can't do instead of what you can do. This becomes very frustrating and you may feel that your English is not as good as you thought it was. This will pass with a lot of (you guessed it) practice.