What Should I Do About My Accent with Dr. Bill Lampton
Can you get rid of your accent by taking a 5 week course? Simple answer: If you anticipate life long residence in your present locale – don’t pay any attention to your accent.
For the professionally mobile person who travels to other sections of the country or even abroad–which means spending a lot of time talking to people outside of your state via telephone or on SKYPE – you need to consider whether your speech habits pose as a distraction. Your pronounced accent becomes more of a hindrance when you move to another section of the country.
Important: You must evaluate how an accent affects your job performance.
An accent must go if you are:
- Planning a career in broadcasting
- Acting
- Teaching
- Professional Speaking
- Training before diverse audiences
For those that decide to alter their accent I vote against the 5 week cram course–acceptable only as a starting point – no more than that.
Preferable choices include:
- Enrolling in speech courses (academic or non-credit)
- Hiring a Speech or Voice Coach
- Rehearsing with a recorder & listening to your speech over and over
- Listening to recordings of speakers with general non-accented dialect
Summary: To alter your accent don’t go any place for a quick cure. Recognize that speech habits that took many years to form are going to take a long time to change.
Links: ChampionshipCommunication.com
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