Monthly Archives: October 2011

Scarier than a Haunted House

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A night­mare.

Maybe you’ll survive.

Sounds like some­one had a pretty scary expe­ri­ence, doesn’t it?

Did they just visit a Haunted House to enjoy a fright before Hal­loween? (Although why any­one enjoys being fright­ened, I don’t really understand!)

No, this per­son was wor­ried about some­thing much spook­ier than a Haunted House. He was wor­ried about giv­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion at work. It’s not because he doesn’t know the mate­r­ial, because he is good at what he does.

It’s because, as a non-native speaker, he has to speak Eng­lish in front of hun­dreds of peo­ple, and he is con­cerned about his Amer­i­can pro­nun­ci­a­tion. He hasn’t had much oppor­tu­nity to improve his spo­ken Eng­lish, so he’s not sure the pre­sen­ta­tion will go well.

Have you felt that fear, too? Your boss tells you that you must give a pre­sen­ta­tion and you feel that tin­gle on the back of your neck, your stom­ach flips around, and you break out in a cold sweat.

What if they don’t under­stand me?
What if I pro­nounce impor­tant words wrong?
What if my pre­sen­ta­tion isn’t clear enough?
What if I lose my job?

You know that you are smart enough and that you do your job well; that’s not the prob­lem. But speak­ing Eng­lish in front of a room­ful of peo­ple and hop­ing they under­stand you? Now that’s some­thing to be afraid of!

Or is it?

Wouldn’t it be nice to feel con­fi­dent the next time your boss asks you to give a pre­sen­ta­tion? It would be such a stress-reliever to know that you will be under­stood when you speak!

Did you know that one of the ser­vices I pro­vide is coach­ing you one-on –one over Skype to pre­pare you for your next presentation?

We work on voice pro­jec­tion and pro­nun­ci­a­tion, focus­ing on your spe­cific topic to be sure that you sound as clear and con­fi­dent as pos­si­ble. Giv­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion doesn’t have to be scary anymore!

But what if your next pre­sen­ta­tion is very soon and you don’t have time to work with me right now?

Try these tips to improve your Amer­i­can pronunciation:

  • Write out your pre­sen­ta­tion so that you can prac­tice. Speak­ing unpre­pared is a great skill, but right now you want to focus on improv­ing your pronunciation.
  • Prac­tice, prac­tice, prac­tice. Become very famil­iar with your topic so you can focus on the pro­nun­ci­a­tion of the words rather than the content.
  • Open your mouth wide and over-enunciate your words. It may sound odd to you, but it will greatly improve how eas­ily you are under­stood by others.
  • Slow down. We all have a ten­dency to talk fast when we are ner­vous, but slow­ing down is one of the best ways to make sure that you pro­nounce your words clearly.
  • Prac­tice in front of a mir­ror. This will help you see if you are able to make good eye con­tact with your audi­ence. Get com­fort­able watch­ing your­self, and add facial expres­sions and ges­tures for empha­sis when appropriate.
  • Prac­tice with a native speaker, if pos­si­ble. Find some­one who can lis­ten to your pre­sen­ta­tion and point out obvi­ous mis­pro­nun­ci­a­tions you can work on.
  • Take a deep breath and think pos­i­tively! The deep breath will help you relax and the pos­i­tive thoughts will help you per­form at your best. Research has shown that we usu­ally per­form about as well as we think we will, so the more pos­i­tively you think, the bet­ter you will do.

Once the pre­sen­ta­tion is over, eval­u­ate your­self fairly. Con­grat­u­late your­self on the things that went well, and make a note of the skills you want to improve for the next time.

Soon, you will see the stage not as a scary Haunted House, but as an excit­ing plat­form for you to share your brilliance!

Ready for some help prepar­ing for your next pre­sen­ta­tion? The first step is to take your free accent screen­ing.

If you found this arti­cle help­ful, please share it with your friends by click­ing on the but­ton below. Thanks!

Turn Over a New Leaf in your American English Pronunciation

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It was rain­ing cats and dogs at my house yesterday!

Under­stand­ing idioms is an impor­tant part of mas­ter­ing Amer­i­can Eng­lish. Wouldn’t you agree? After all, even per­fect pro­nun­ci­a­tion can’t help you if you have no idea what the other per­son means.

A pow­er­ful rain­storm yes­ter­day knocked most of our beau­ti­ful leaves to the ground, and as I was look­ing at those fall leaves, I thought about some idioms and expres­sions that use the word leaf.

If you are quickly skim­ming through a book, you might say that you are leaf­ing through it.

We leafed through sev­eral books look­ing for the right information.

Next spring, the trees will once again have tiny green leaves grow­ing on them. Some­times it seems as if they appear almost overnight. When the leaves appear, we say that the tree has leafed out.

The trees leafed out ear­lier this year, didn’t they?

If you are scared or ner­vous about a cer­tain sit­u­a­tion, you might be shak­ing like a leaf.

I was so ner­vous about that job inter­view that I was shak­ing like a leaf.

On the other hand, if you have made a deci­sion to change or improve the way you do some­thing, you could say that you are turn­ing over a new leaf.

No more smok­ing for me! I’m turn­ing over a new leaf.

Some of you have decided to turn over a new leaf with your Amer­i­can pro­nun­ci­a­tion, haven’t you? Your old speech pat­terns just aren’t work­ing well enough and it’s time to make a change.

Now is the per­fect time to turn over a new leaf and get in some pro­nun­ci­a­tion prac­tice before the holidays.

Just to see who is seri­ous about turn­ing over a new leaf, I will be fol­low­ing Amer­i­can tra­di­tion by offer­ing a Black Fri­day spe­cial. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it sim­ply means a spe­cial sale offered only the day after Thanks­giv­ing, also known as Black Fri­day. I can’t tell you all the details yet, but it will be a fully-downloadable home study prod­uct at a price that will knock your socks off! (That’s another idiom that means: you will be pleas­antly sur­prised!)

So, be watch­ing for an update next week. And if you’re not on my email list, be sure to sign up in the box on the right where it says “Free Report”. That way, you’ll be among the first to know about the spe­cial when it’s ready for you!

See you next week!