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Why Some People See Little Progress With 1-on-1 Language Coaching
This article covers a variety of considerations which can influence the success of language coaching. If you are a manager or HR professional recommending such training to an employee, the following information can help shed light on the factors involved in successful...
5 Mistakes Professionals Make When Introducing Themselves
Why do we introduce ourselves? We want people to know how to address us. We want to share a bit of information about who we are and what we do so there is a point of connection. We want people to remember us and something about us. Many reasons and many contexts. What...
How Your Attitude and Behaviour Can Influence Comprehension and What To Do About It
We understand best those who communicate as we do. What does “communicating like me” mean? What are the variables in communication? Consider these factors: language, accent, volume, vocabulary and expressions, grammar, body language, level of formality, cultural...
Realistic vs Unrealistic Expectations of Accent Training: Why HR and management need to be informed
Accent training is about adjusting an accent. We all have accents, so terms such as “accent elimination” and “accent reduction” are based on the incorrect assumption that “we” don’t have accents. I prefer to use the terms “accent modification,” “accent adjustment,”...
8 Common Causes of Unclear Speech
Many things influence how what we say is perceived. (See our recent blog post entitled, 3 Things You Probably Haven’t Considered About Clear Communication.) In that post, I focused primarily on interpretation and cultural assumptions. In this post, I want to focus on...
Did You Know We Have 3 Different Learning Systems (and Often Only Use One?)
Cognitive Learning System Most of us have been conditioned to “sit down and study” when we want to learn something. We depend on our thinking and memorizing, on learning facts and drilling, on researching and discussing. And these learning activities are a valid and...
3 Things You Probably Haven’t Considered About Clear Communication
Clarity is influenced by a number of things. You might immediately assume that we are talking of ARTICULATION, which refers to the movement of the tongue, lips and other muscles in the mouth. While that certainly is one important aspect of speech which helps us...
Weather Idioms
A former student of mine got a job in northern Quebec years ago. The weather is pretty harsh there and, being quick witted, he wrote the following few paragraphs with common weather idioms. I felt it was so well written and the idioms used so naturally, I decided to...
The Absurdities of English Spelling & Pronunciation
This poem has many names and can be found on the internet under a number of titles. I like this one - BRUSH UP YOUR ENGLISH. The author is also in debate but I found one name - T.S Watt - with the date posted as 1954. The relationship between pronunciation and English...
Pronouncing T – Practice the poem with the audio
Pronouncing T varies between languages. For example, where the tongue makes contact with the top of the mouth varies, as does the angle of the tongue and the air expelled. In this poem, the T sounds are primarily made at the beginning of the words. In this case, the T...
