by Heather Chetwynd | Apr 17, 2023 | Human Resources
“We have a senior VP who is really abrupt. People are finding her rude and hard to work with. How can we deal with this?” There are three principal factors that influence communication styles: Cultural conditioning Personal conditioning Emotional state Let...
by Heather Chetwynd | Feb 25, 2022 | Business Communications
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...
by Heather Chetwynd | Feb 17, 2022 | Culture and Values
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...
by Heather Chetwynd | Feb 11, 2022 | Accent Modification
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...
by Heather Chetwynd | Feb 4, 2022 | Accent Modification
One of the more difficult parts of learning English is being able to distinguish where a word starts and where it ends. Why is this? Because in English, we link our words, joining the end of one word with the beginning of the next. Linking (which also happens in other...