Please note this is not an employment agency. -It does not help you find job openings. -It helps you with your job application.
Having a heavy foreign accent (in speaking English) is like having spinach on your teeth. People won’t tell you. They will talk about you behind your back. And you wonder why you don’t get hired or get promoted.
Why? Most immigrants learned English as a second language. Even after they have mastered the language, they still carry a foreign accent unless they learned it from native speakers before the age of 13. One time, an immigrant called 911 after his car rolled down a cliff, but his call was hard to understand because of his accent. A heavy foreign accent can jeopardize one’s communication in case of an emergency, and a moderate foreign accent can disadvantage one’s career advancement.
Who? Fran Lai has a Master’s degree in Linguistics from Southern Illinois University and is glad to help non-native speakers of English reduce their foreign accent, that is, speak more like a native. Fran herself is a non-native speaker from Hong Kong where she was educated in an English school and learned English from native and non-native speakers. It was her study in Linguistics that helped her discover the path to speaking more like a native. Nowadays she often receives comments like “I thought you were born here,” which to her is a compliment.
How? Her method of coaching is identifying the students’ accent areas, pointing out the linguistic differences in those areas, helping them to hear the differences and learn to tune in to native speakers and consciously “absorb” the way they speak. It's not like Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady"! Don't worry!
Because accents are not “contagious”, that’s why non-native speakers can’t “catch” the accent of the native speaker automatically, nor will they “catch” the accent of another non-native speaker. What Fran has to offer is her ability to lead the student in the right direction as well as sharing her own experience in reducing her accent successfully. The only requirements are that you already speak English fluently and you have an open mind and accept criticism.
In San Francisco Bay Area only
Fran offers accent analysis and improvement at below-market rate ($35/hour). First lesson FREE.
Phone: (510) 384-3895 Her voice is in outgoing message
