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.

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