Posts Tagged ‘ESL’
Thursday, November 8th, 2012
On Monday, October 22, 2012, Jeff Madigan from the L2 Accent Reduction Center gave a presentation to the students at Columbia College. Columbia College is certified post secondary institution catering to international students that offers bridge programs to UBC and other universities. For students who studied English as a Second Language, accented speech can be a barrier after completing their studies and hitting the North American labour Market. SFU advisor, Kirk Hill states, “Graduates tend to enter the workforce with all of the qualifications, education, and ambition, but those with foreign accents often hit a huge roadblock during their very first phone interview.” Columbia College instructor, Fatin Jallad agrees. He notes that depending on where an international student is from, he can struggle more to understand their speech. What he notices is something everyone experiences. Depending on a person’s familiarity with the sound of specific language families, a person’s accent can be either easier or harder to distinguish in terms of speech intelligibility.
Leaders of the Columbia College Entrepreneur Club, Baiaman Urmatbek and Akbuken Shektibay, met up with L2 Accent Reduction at a workshop given at SFU. They invited Jeff Madigan to speak at their club, not just about voice training, but about how he became an entrepreneur. ”It’s good for our club to get speakers like Jeff, our club is one of the biggest at Columbia College, says Shektibay. L2 Accent hopes that they have inspired the students at Columbia College and given them some strategies to help them in their future after graduating.
Tags: accent reduction courses, accent reduction training, Canadian Accent, career, Chinese, cross-cultural, English as a Second Language, ESL, foreign accents, Immigrant, immigrants, Jeff Madigan, mispronouncing, pronunciation, pronunciation training, Vancouver
Posted in Accent Reduction Specialist, Accent Reduction Techniques, Immigrants of Canada, Jeff Madigan, Speak Clearer Accent Reduction Workshop, Voice Training | Comments Off
Monday, August 27th, 2012
As accent reduction specialists with a background in both ESL training and speech pathology, the staff here at L2 Accent Reduction Centre have seen many young working professionals with nearly unintelligible speech because of their heavy accents. Many of these clients attended university, high school and in some cases, even elementary school in Canada, yet are unable to communicate effectively in both professional and personal aspects of their lives.
A recent Vancouver Sun article details the growing problem of struggling immigrant students buying passing grades in high school and how this negatively affects their future in university. While many immigrant students undoubtedly face challenges in the university setting, we believe these problems are only amplified once the students graduate and enter the work place. Kai was one of our clients who attended university in British Columbia but found himself struggling once he began his career working as a programmer in the Silicon Valley. He found his heavily accented speech negatively impacted his social and professional relationships and he wishes he had received accent training at an earlier age.
Although many immigrant parents may want to put their kids on a “fast track” to university, regardless of the long-term consequences, others have the long-sightedness to invest in their child’s continued success in the future. These parents recognize that “soft skills” such as social skills and etiquette can be just important as academic performance. Thankfully for their children, they are more interested in developing the soft skills of communication that are necessary for success.
Tags: accent, accent reduction, accent reduction training, ESL, foreign accents, Immigrant, immigrants, Jeff Madigan, pronunciation training
Posted in Accent Reduction Specialist, Immigrants of Canada, Jeff Madigan | Comments Off
Friday, March 16th, 2012
From the feedback given by attendees at some of our accent reduction workshops, we realized that there was also a demand for writing skills improvement. On March 7, 2012, instructor Jeff Madigan conducted a new workshop at S.U.C.C.E.S.S. for writing skills. L2 Accent Reduction has clients for both speaking and writing. Some professionals feel that their writing just has too many errors for the level of work that they are doing. Jeff recognized that some aspects of writing are not very well dealt with at very high levels in your typical grammar text book. Wednesday’s workshop focused specifically on preposition usage. Prepositions are especially problematic. They occur in phrasal verbs, such as kick out, in set combinations with nouns (on TV), adjectives (free of) and verbs (believe in), and in adverbial phrases. While the first two can be memorized, it is rare to find a grammar book that outlines using prepositions adverbially. The workshop went over these usage systems and simplified aspects out of linguistics text books into a succinct form for attendees to grasp. The workshop reviews were positive so expect to see more of these in the future.
Write more Clearly at Work
Tags: accent reduction training, career, Chinese, English as a Second Language, ESL, Jeff Madigan, mispronouncing, pronounced, pronucation, pronunciation, pronunciation training
Posted in Accent Reduction For Businesses, Accent Reduction Techniques, Jeff Madigan, Language and Culture | Comments Off
Tuesday, March 13th, 2012
My father is terrible at drawing. He told me a story about drawing once. In one of his university courses for teacher education the teacher asked the students to draw a picture of an elephant sunbathing on a beach. He couldn’t recall the purpose of the activity; perhaps it had something to do with multiple intelligences. He just remembered being extremely embarrassed by his poor drawing ability. And while it’s true that some people are better at drawing, it is a skill that can be learned with practice.
Almost two years ago, I joined the Talk for Success Toastmaster’s Club at 38 West Pender Street. At first, I felt it was good for me as a native speaker of English to join a club that was mostly non-native speakers because many of the members were looking for more opportunities to interact with native speakers of English. I didn’t realize how much I could benefit and develop professionally with my public speaking skills. Although having strong fluency of a language helps to give a presentation, I was often humbled by some very engaging and moving speeches that were delivered by members who do not speak English as their first language. Just like with the art of drawing, music, and writing, the more you do it and the more you experiment with different techniques, the more well-rounded and better your skills will become.
If you are interested in visiting us at our Toastmaster’s club, feel free to drop in. We meet every Wednesday at 12 noon at 38 West Pender Street in Vancouver, BC.
The Art of Speaking
Tags: Chinese, cross-cultural, drawing, English, English accent, English as a Second Language, English speaking, ESL, foreign accents, Immigrant, immigrants, Jeff Madigan, public speaking, toastmaster's club, Vancouver
Posted in Jeff Madigan, Language and Culture, Toastmaster's Club | Comments Off
Wednesday, February 22nd, 2012
It’s the 21st century, and everybody is addicted to the computer. We’ve become so reliable to the internet that we do everything on there, from shopping, to entertainment, and even learning. Learning something online has become very popular these years, and everyone is trying to make the most of it.
First, it is important to choose what exactly you want to learn at the moment, and be specific. There is no point in learning something you will never use. If you are an English teacher, you would most likely never have the urge to learn how to put together a car. On the other hand, if you are someone who would like to learn English online, you would have to be more specific. You can choose how to read English, write English, or speak English. You may want to master all of these within a few years, but when it comes to learning something new, starting one step at a time is a good idea.
Next, you want to take advantage. Think about it, the internet contains millions of information about billions of things. What is the point if you do not use as many of those sources related to your topic as possible? Let’s go back to the person who is learning English online. The internet would be a great source of practice. On the web, you can find many English-related quizzes and games to play in order to improve your grammar and vocabulary. In addition, there are many videos and articles you can take a look at to advance in your studies.
Hopefully this has helped to change your view on online learning, and provided you with a clearer path on experiencing success when learning online.
accent reduction techniques - accent reduction tools
Tags: accents, British English, Canada, Canadian Accent, career, English, English as a Second Language, english training course, ESL, foreign accents, online english training, online learning
Posted in Human Resources, Language and Culture, online learning | 1 Comment »
