L2 BLOG

Posts Tagged ‘Vancouver’

Free Accent Reduction Training Courses

Wednesday, March 27th, 2013

As a business owner, do you struggle with communication issues related to customer service? Communication with employees? Clarity of speech? If so, L2 Accent wants you to know about our accent reduction or voice projection courses, worth up to $1500, that are being offered for free through BC Chamber of Commerce. In order to be eligible:

Your business must:

As an owner you must:

have fewer than 5 employees

Have no provincially, nationally, or internationally recognized certifications

Have no university or post-secondary degree or diploma

Additional Requirements

A resident of British Columbia

Legally entitled to work in Canada

19 years of age or older

Not a full-time post-secondary student

Not a high-school student

Not participating in another LMA funded program

Have a valid municipal business license or an Incorporation Number, or a CRA Tax Number

If you are eligible and interested, go to http://www.bcmicrobusiness.com/eligibility to apply.

L2 Accent is offering:

Communication Skills for Business Professionals

In this course, we will be exploring different topics to train the muscles of the mouth to produce North American sounds based on the problem areas of the client. These proven clinical techniques will result in the acquisition of an excellent professionally and socially enhancing North American accent that will help individuals to speak clearer and relate better at work and in social situations. It will help business owners to have the confidence they need to communicate in everyday business environments. (Duration and Value: 8 sessions – $1250.00; 10 sessions – $1500.00)

L2 Speak Clearer Program – Online

This program will help you produce the correct techniques by watching and listening to high quality video and audio instructional video. Once you have mastered the technique, you will be asked to submit your recordings. A Speech Professional will then analyze your recordings and provide you with helpful techniques to correct any problems you may have. (Duration and Value: Up to one year of access to 24/7 online content – $550.00)

You will learn:

Clearer production of consonant and vowel sounds
Rhythm, stress, and intonation patterns of native speakers
Strategies to produce clear speech

Presentation Skills for Business Professionals

This course provides communication solutions for those who have problems giving good presentations. This is mainly due to breathing techniques and how one is able to project, modulate and manipulate their voice to deliver entertaining presentations without damaging the vocal chords. Work with renowned voice coach Jan Cooper from Pump Records. (Duration and Value: 8 sessions – $1250.00; 10 sessions – $1500.00)

Writing Skills for Business Professionals

This writing course will help business owners to gain confidence in their writing abilities. With written output, we help refine a person’s writing by identifying weaknesses in structure and by developing strategies to “code switch” between formal and informal registers to reduce both instances of communication breakdowns and conflicts that result from incorrect assumptions connected to using the wrong tone of voice. (Duration and Value: 3 months – $350.00; 6 months – $650.00)

How will this course help?

Writing training makes use of an editing service so that clients improve their performance through practice that is both meaningful and in context to their business.
Clients can send an unlimited number of documents or emails to have corrected and edited.

Tags: accent reduction class, accent reduction courses, accent reduction training, free accent reduction, Vancouver, voice training courses
Posted in Accent Reduction For Businesses, online learning, Voice Training | Comments Off

L2 Accent Reduction Featured in the 24Hours Newspaper in Vancouver BC

Saturday, January 26th, 2013

On January 22, 2013, Accent Reduction Centre Jennifer Madigan was featured in the 24Hours Newspaper in Vancouver, BC. A well known local newspaper read by the Greater Vancouver locals on their daily morning ride on the skytrain to/from work, at home, or just enjoying a cup of coffee at their favorite local cafe. Read all about it here: http://vancouver.24hrs.ca/2013/01/22/immigrants-seek-to-lose-accents-in-tough-job-market

Tags: accent reduction, Canadian Accent, Immigrant, immigrants, Jennifer Madigan, pronunciation training, Vancouver, Vancouver 2010
Posted in Jennifer Madigan | Comments Off

L2 Accent Reduction Speaks at Columbia College

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

BC Businesses Diversify Staff and Look to Supportive Training from L2 Accent Reduction Centre

Monday, November 5th, 2012

Is your pizza being delivered by an agriculture engineer from Dubai?

We have all heard the familiar story of how highly-skilled, internationally-trained professionals are wasting time in low-wage survival jobs. Does this happen because of inadequate language skills? Is it an inability to culturally integrate? Were immigrants misled by a promise that their skills were in demand?

Each story is unique and there are successes as much as failures but the good news is that British Columbia has a strong diverse workforce and its companies are leading the way in finding ways to harness the power and benefits that diversity brings. On Nov.1, 2012, BCHRMA’s Diversity Roundtable will host an expert panel discussion that will address communication skills and employee engagement for diverse workplaces.

Raj Sharma, HR Manager for BC Hydro will relate his experiences with training and development for internationally trained professionals. BC Hydro has been recognized as a leader in diversity initiatives for its staff, a process it started over 15 years ago after realizing how dominated its workforce had become by locally born male engineers, who were accustomed to assignments in isolated projects over the vast uninhabited areas of British Columbia. Today, many of BC Hydro’s operations have centralized and its workforce has changed too.

ACL Services is also well known for having been a leader in creating diversity policies for its staff. Victoria Darnbrough explains how diversity polices in the workplace can give all workers a fair and equal chance and can define clear boundaries for any workplace conflict that may arise due to cultural difference.

Jeff Madigan, Director of Programs at L2 Accent Reduction Center, works with many large corporations and will discuss how a person’s communication skills can become a barrier and how to address accented speech without offending but by empowering. “Because pronunciation is not a focus in a majority of language learning programs, many workers welcome the idea of becoming better communicators to express themselves without regret or hesitation.”, says Madigan.

Communication skills improvement is a growing area for training and development, and it’s not just for the immigrant worker. Conflict resolution, public speaking, presentation skills, and negotiation are all areas where employees and companies receive benefits from training. However, for the immigrant worker, communication skills can pose as a larger obstacle, since it is often wrongly associated as having to do with language fluency.

L2 Accent Reduction Center provides workplace speech training solutions to address unintelligible accented speech and other related communication skills obstacles that can provide barriers to internationally trained professionals in their place of work.

Tags: accent reduction courses, accent reduction training, English as a Second Language, Immigrant, immigrants, Jeff Madigan, Vancouver, workplace, workplace bc
Posted in Accent Reduction For Businesses, Accent Reduction Specialist, Jeff Madigan, Workplace BC | Comments Off

Master Your Voice in High School for a Stronger Future in British Columbia (BC)

Monday, October 29th, 2012

On September 4, 2012 over 500,000 high school students returned to the classroom. According to the BCTF (British Columbia Teachers’ Federation) nearly 50% of those students do not speak English as a first language. Many of these students come from cultures that place a high value on education and these parents and pupils have only one thing in mind – bring home the A’s at all costs. In a recent article,Vancouver Sun journalist Janet Steffenhangen, brought to light the, “growing number of immigrant students who fail high-school English classes but get the credits they need to attend university by taking inferior courses at little-known independent schools where everyone passes.”

According to Jeff Madigan, an Accent Reduction Specialist at L2 Accent Reduction problems with English language fluency can cast a shadow throughout someone’s entire career when left unattended. “In my line of work, I have seen clients such as Kai, who attended university for four years in BC and is barely intelligible . He now works in the Silicon Valley, but struggles in his daily interactions and takes accent reduction lessons online so people can understand him.” says Madigan.

The L2 Accent Reduction Centre provides training on the nuances of English and intelligibility issues connected to accented speech. Training is predominately given to internationally trained professionals who may be fluent in their understanding of English, but never made aware of the subtleties of English when they learned it in their home country. “And we are starting to see more high school students take our training” says Madigan, “even though the skills we teach won’t necessarily help a high-school student to get an A, they will help a student to communicate better so that they can negotiate, present, and lead others; skills that often lead to higher grades and better job opportunities.”

There are some parents who do understand this situation and see the value of investing in their children’s future success. Ivy is currently a high school student who is preparing for her university interviews in the USA. Her father, a Chinese businessman, believes that his daughter’s ability to adopt the same rhythm and speech patterns as a native speaker can be a great advantage to her communication skills and future job success.

Still, a majority of new immigrant parents from Asia are more focused on the letter grade. Madigan feels it is almost a kind of Jacques Demers effect. By finding ways around literacy issues, there is a short term success, like getting into university. But the problem never truly goes away. What good are high marks if you can’t communicate well enough in a job interview to get hired?

Tags: accent reduction, accent reduction courses, accent reduction training, Canadian Accent, Chinese, cross-cultural, English as a Second Language, foreign accents, Immigrant, immigrants, Jeff Madigan, pronunciation training, Vancouver
Posted in Accent Reduction Specialist, Immigrants of Canada, Jeff Madigan, Language and Culture | Comments Off