I Worked On This In a Recent Session

I just finished a great session with a small business owner who is originally from Japan. 

She wants to sound better and feel confident that she is easily understood when speaking, because she is in the process of creating some short promo/informational videos to promote her business. 

We had a conversation about how important it is, especially right now, to have a strong social media presence, and how all of social media is really focused on VIDEO!

It’s so true.  Potential students or clients want to feel like they know you and that connection is best made through video. 

Do you have a video/social marketing strategy?  You should.  Especially if you are looking to attract new students.

But back to my session.

We have already improved her pronunciation of word endings to add clarity and a few problematic consonant sounds that were creating confusion in her speech and she is loving the fact that she rarely has to repeat herself any more.

So in this session, I just corrected a few minor word mispronunciations.  I gave some tips for slowing down a bit, suggested using pauses for emphasis and to give the listener time to catch up (she’s a super fast talker!!!), and worked on adding some more interesting and expressive intonations.

I also spent a good amount of time just correcting the grammar in the scripts she had written.  Nothing major…some missing articles and plurals, things like that. 

But for those of you just starting out who are worried that you are not qualified to do this work or think that you need to know the phonetic inventory for every single accent and dialect to become a certified accent modification instructor, I want you to see that sometimes we just need to help our students with very basic stuff!!! 

Is correcting grammar in a script a researched-based therapy technique? NO! 

Is it exactly what my student needed from our session today so that she sounds amazing and knowledgeable on her website and social media?  YES!!!! 

I also thought…What a great niche market this would be for us as accent trainers, especially you actors, who can also give tips on how to look and sound natural on camera! 

And there is definitely an audience out there just waiting for you to help them.