Listen to episode 2 of the Peach Teach English Podcast to learn how to improve your English pronunciation. I’m Frankie Mesmer, your host, and I was joined in this episode by my co-host guests Oluwatoye Peter and Jeanne Petrus-Rivera. Information to contact them below:
Contact one of the hosts:
Frankie Mesmer: Book your FREE COURTESY CLASS [CLICK HERE]
Oluwatoye Peter: Email: oralpeter130@gmail.com Whatsapp: +2349028949279
Jeanne Petrus-Rivera: Book your FREE ASSESSMENT [CLICK HERE]
Pronunciation Resources:
In this episode, we recommend a few great resources to help you improve your pronunciation. Check out the links below:
Peach Teach English Blog: Read my blog for more pronunciation tips and practice activities! Don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE!
TRANSCRIPT:
How are you today, Jeannie? Good. Hello, Jeannie, nice to meet you as well. Thank you. Jeannie, why don't you introduce yourself first? My name's Jeannie Petrus, and I'm from Cleveland, Ohio, originally. I've lived in a few different places, I'm in Mexico right now. I specialize in accent reduction, so helping people to speak more clearly and confidently with an American English accent.
And Peter? My name is Peter. My local name is Oluwatoye. It means God loves me, right? So you can say we believe in God a lot in this part of the world. Yeah, so I'm a researcher at Babcock University. I'm also a materials writer. I train people who want to do programs, exams, like IELTS, like TOEFL, like CELPIP.
And I'm an author as well. I've authored some books. And I train people just, general English usage, for business or whatnot. We're happy to have you here too, Oluwatuye. Okay. Oh, you've got the pronunciation down. I need to practice that one a little bit. We've talked a few times.
He helped me. Yeah people who don't know me I'm Frankie Mesmer. I'm from Savannah, Georgia, USA, but now I live in South America in the beautiful country of Colombia. I work as an ESL teacher, focusing on helping students become confident speakers of English and be able to interact with native speakers more easily.
Today we're going to focus on how we can improve our pronunciation in English and perhaps sound more like a native speaker. And first I'd like us to talk about our personal experiences with pronunciation challenges. Actually I'm going to start with you Oluwatoye.
So actually I have a very funny funny funny experience when it comes to pronunciation. Because in this part of the world there's a way we pronounce our words that's really quite different from the word itself. Okay. And I have lots of examples here. For instance, I grew up, listening to the word.
Insatiable. All right. Imagine my shock. Imagine my shock when I got to know the word is insatiable. I was, I was totally taken aback, so that kind of give me the the passion, to want to study more. And I discovered that, we have letters and we have sounds, it's quite different.
We have 26 letters, we have 44 sounds. And interestingly, letter A can give us up to 9 different sounds. In different words. So the letter A in table is different from the one in Swallow.
. So it's really intriguing. How letters, work, and how sounds also work. Yeah it's quite funny for me. Thank you for sharing your experience. And what about you, Jeannie? What languages have you studied? I started studying Spanish in high school.
And I studied four years in high school, and then I majored in that in college. And for me, the pronunciation in Spanish came pretty easily. But I think also that it comes from having confidence and from not Being afraid to sound weird because like high school students don't usually have so much confidence, self confidence.
And so they don't want to, no quieren hablar. They don't want to speak with the correct accent. So they say, yo no quiero. And they pronounce Spanish as if they were speaking English. And that's where you just get, and it's like, Just it's getting out of your comfort zone. And so now, and then after that, I studied a little bit of French and that was a totally different accent, especially like the R the L no and then I'm studying also some Russian and that has certain sounds a lot of the vowels are similar to to Spanish or French, but then they have this one, it's.
And you have to pull your, yeah, you have to pull, it's almost like swallowing. It's almost like a combination of E and a dark L where you're pulling your tongue back. So that one's really challenging. And hopefully someday it'll start to feel more natural. And then I fell into
teaching accent reduction, just because I was teaching English as a second language, and then somebody wanted specifically to focus on accent. And that was many years ago. And so I started coaching her on her accent and just over the years I've learned so much I had some of that in my master's.
Program, but then a lot of it was just learning as I go watching YouTube videos on technique and taking some shorter courses on learning how to teach the accent reduction. Okay. So I think it's fun. I think it's fun. Yeah, it sounds fun for sure. So my experience, I'm going to share experience with Spanish, but I have studied Portuguese, French, and Turkish as well.
But Spanish was my first language that I studied, and I think Jeannie made a really good point. You have to, realize that, especially in the beginning, you're gonna sound a little funny. It's new. You're learning how to move your mouth, your tongue in a new way. And I think with the other languages, I already learned how to accept that.
So it wasn't as big of a problem. But when I was first learning Spanish, I was so worried about sounding perfectly. And if I didn't think I was gonna sound perfectly, I would prefer just to be silent. And that wasn't very good. Especially because I didn't know how to roll my R's in Spanish.
And a lot of words require you to roll your R's. So I would just feel like I sounded ridiculous and maybe I did a little bit and it actually took me two years to learn how to, But when I finally was able to roll my r's It was such a special moment in my life.
I still remember it to this day And I was actually singing a song that didn't even require me to roll my R's. But there was an R sound so close to each other that it like forced me to roll my R's. And I did it. And then I tried it three seconds later and did it again. And I was like, Oh my God, I finally have learned to roll my R's.
And so I do think maybe in the beginning, it can be very difficult. These new sounds, but keep at it. If you have someone helping you too, you can learn a lot faster. And I think music is a great way to help you improve your pronunciation because you're naturally learning how to connect those sounds and make those sounds.
I remember also when I first came to Colombia, I was in Cali and I was making some friends and we were like singing some songs and they're like, your accent isn't as strong when you sing. I don't know. Singing and music can make a big difference. Interesting. Do you agree, Jeannie? Yeah, I would probably say I don't use music as much as I, or would like to in, in my classes.
But I know for me, I've learned a lot in Spanish, especially through music. So vocabulary is great for vocabulary, for grammar, just for colloquial expressions or collocations. Yeah, and it's fun. Yes, music is. And you don't forget. It helps with memory, too. Because you won't hear a song for 10 years, and then all of a sudden you hear it again, and you still know all the words.
Exactly. That happened with me at karaoke night this weekend with a song. I haven't sung that song in so long, but I still remember all the words in Spanish because it was the first one I learned. That's also why I chose it at karaoke night. And so what about you Oluwatuye? Did you ever use music? No, I don't use music.
What I use in fact is maybe movies. I watch movies and I listen carefully to the words being articulated. And once I hear that, I check my dictionary for the meanings and usages and how to use them and stuff. And I just, maybe write it down, maybe go over and go over again
yeah. Although I think it's also good to use music, because of the rhythm, with the sounds accompanying the words, but for me, I think movies or maybe some audio Materials would also help, in learning how to be a better English speaker.
There are a lot of resources and methods to help you for sure. And before we dive into those guys, I would like to answer this question. Is it okay to have an accent? Okay, so what do you think, Jeannie, is it okay to have an accent? Accent. I think so. Absolutely. For a lot of people, it's.
It's not realistic to try to get rid of your accent completely. I think for most people, if you start studying young, in your teens even maybe even in your early 20s and start working with a coach, that you may have a possibility to develop a perfect accent. But I think it, really what is more important is being clear
and understandable. And often, I know Americans for the most part love to, that's a generalization, but most people love to hear an accent. And it opens up a conversation for your culture and where you're from. Some people don't like that. They don't want people to ask them where they're from or focus on their accent.
But I know a lot of people in my circle people who like to travel would immediately be like, oh, where are you from? And what are you doing in the United States? And it just opens the opportunity for small talk. So yeah, as long as you're, as long as you're speaking clearly, when there are words that you're mispronouncing that maybe could sound like A bad word, for example, like the word focus could come out really wrong.
Or you're stressing the wrong syllable or something like that and people Have a difficulty understanding you and it leads to breakdowns in communication. That's where you want to focus your attention
So what do you think, Peter? Is it okay to have an accent? Yes. Yes. In fact, I think accents are natural, right? I think accents, is something that people just used to know you like where you're from. Once they hear you, they say, oh, this person is from the UK, this person is American, this person is Nigerian, alright?
I think it's totally okay to have an accent, but, if you really want to meet people, beyond where you're from, you may need to take a reduction class. Yeah. So that people cannot, just hear you clearly, and then they can just flow with you,
but normally, I think it's an okay thing. Now, if you're just where you are, people can hear you and say, Oh, this person is Nigerian, and interestingly, we have so many dialects, right? Even in this country, all right? For instance, now, I'm training a lady who is actually Igbo, all right?
She's Igbo. Some words I think most Igbo people usually mispronounce. Whether or not they are educated, right? You probably hear a bit of an Igbo accent when they pronounce these words, right?
So the first one will probably sound like year, right? Maybe what year? And then you're wondering what's the how you're saying your year. And then the other words They say months.
So the th is even out completely in it. So they say months and then you're like, Oh, what is that? Now? The last word is really something, right? Can I say develop, right? I can develop it for you. Yeah. So that's just the way it is, so once you hear that, okay, this person is definitely Igbo right?
The other day on campus, I had somebody, pronounce the article, T H E, and then she said de, and then she said de man, de, and I asked, I said, are you Ghanaian? And then she said, how did you know? You said de.
So I could pinpoint where she was from, just by articulating T H E. So if you don't want that to happen to you you may take a reduction class, so you just sound natural. Nobody will, hear you and say, Oh, are you this? Are you that? So that's my take on that.
Thank you so much. I've worked with Arabic students, Turkish students, Portuguese, Spanish speaking students, and sometimes they just say, Hello, how are you? And I know Exactly where they're from just based on the rhythm of how they say it or how they respond to the question as well so I agree.
It's okay to have an accent. It's normal Like it's almost part of your identity But of course if that accent creates confusion for your listener. It's a problem and we need to correct it. Also, if you want to be an actor or something, you definitely need to reduce that accent. You have to sound identical to the character that you are playing.
But there is an expression that goes an accent is a sign of bravery, right? This is someone coming in, learning a new language. Trying to speak something different, and we should understand that takes bravery to do. Moving on to the next question here, guys.
We're gonna talk about what aspects are important when trying to reduce your accent, okay? What do we need to focus on? I'll let you start here, Jeannie. Okay. What's one thing we need to focus on? One of the big things, which is surprising to people, because most people want to immediately focus on individual sounds but really is the melody.
And so let me give you an example, which I like to do this with my students also. So if I sing the happy birthday song, okay. And I sing it with perfect pronunciation, but I sing it like this. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. You understand the words, but it sounds so bad that you're like, that's not the song.
If you were just listening without actually hearing the words, you would not recognize it. Okay? But then, if I sing it like this, With a strong accent. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday. You can understand it because of the melody.
I get my students to just hum the melody. So if I say something like I'm going to go to the store, I'm going to go to the store.
And because American English has that type of melody and so that's where you want to focus your attention. Also, it's going to help you with grammar and what words to stress and even how to put your sentences together because we're always going to have that and that's number one, I would say. Okay. Peter? So for me, I would say, let's start from the very, beginning, right? Let's start from the basics, right? Jeanne is taking me to a super higher level.
By taking it like as a whole, why not start from the very beginning your sounds for instance, right? You want to focus on your phonemes because your phonemes will make your words when you blend them together Isn't it now I feel like you have to focus on some sounds that are not in your native tongue.
Also, the schwat sounds, the vowel sound is somewhat hard for people to, rightly pronounce.
And then we have, those sounds particularly like the TH I mentioned earlier the voiceless and the voiced dental fricatives as well. You want to master all these sounds, so once you can do this correctly, then you can begin to blend your sounds together. It's the sounds that you blend together, not the letters. Letters are used for spelling, sounds for articulation. Alright, now look at this. I have two words I'm going to use. There's cat, C A T, and there's caught. Now, C A T, figure letters, We can blend all phonemes in that word, right?
The other word, six letters, but we only have three phonemes, consonants, vowel, consonants. If you're not so sure here, you probably mispronounced the second word. But if you know that, okay, your A U G H, it's giving you the long AUGH sound, you'll see it's giving you the, all right, you can easily blend AUGH to make Caught.
. So for me, I would say, okay, let's start from the beginning. Let's try to know your IPA, your sounds. Let's learn how to pronounce the sounds. And, from there we can now go to where Jeanne is. And then we can all learn the melody and how to sound. Yeah, thank you. Exactly, so we have cat and we have caught.
Yeah, they're similar, but they're in that vowel sound. You do need to focus on that longer vowel sound, right? cAUGHt. Which actually, it's starting to evolve out of American English. That sounds, Oh, really? I use it. Yeah. But actually a lot of people instead of saying caught, they say "cot" and it's very so they say C O T cot, like the same as the past of catch caught.
So it's actually a smaller I think there's a, there's more people that have fused those two sounds than that have not fused them. So it's a little bit tricky to teach that particular, the aw sound. I say I use it, but not everybody does. Yeah. Yeah. Start to observe when you hear people and be like, Oh, he just said caught.
I caught a, I caught five fish. Like really? And yeah, you understand it because of the context and everything else. That's true, though. Language is always evolving, and these sounds can change, and I think oftentimes we're looking for ways to say it faster, and perhaps that's why that has happened.
And going off what you said, focusing on the melody, Jeannie, perhaps that's why my accent was not as strong when I was singing, because I was focusing on the melody of the language. This is also how I can tell, for example, which of my students are Brazilian. Because when they speak English, Portuguese has a very strong melody.
And so they continue to speak English with that same melody. So just saying hello, I know exactly where they are from. So the melody is very true. Yes. Then going off of what you said, Peter, I think it is very important to focus on those sounds that are different from your language. Because the ones that are the same or very similar, you're going to be able to do quite easily.
But the ones that are different are going to require more training and repetition. Though it is interesting, the closer A word is to your native language, the more likely you are to pronounce it incorrectly. I think it's because your brain is so stuck in, your native language way of pronouncing it.
, you actually still keep a, quite a strong accent, but people will still understand you, of course. So I think another thing that we need to focus on when improving pronunciation, especially if you want to speak more quickly and sound more like a native speaker, is using contractions. I think it's very important.
That's what we're going to do, because we want to speak fast. And now I do think the most important thing is sounding clear for your listener. I would say make sure you practice this a lot. You don't want to confuse your listener, but eventually you want to start using contractions. What do you guys think of contractions?
Peter, you want to go ahead first?
Contractions are very good. However, I feel like contractions are for informal, situations, right? But you can't, I feel like you can't just, start contracting words in a formal gathering, official meetings, you're using words, you're using can't, you're using shouldn't, isn't it? Although, sometimes are really good, to, imitate natives, to speak like them, something you want to master, I think, yeah. You can definitely master that. And what do you think, Jeannie?
Yeah, I think that may be true in Nigeria or maybe, more so in British English, but I think in American English, it's crucial to use contractions. We use them all the time. And I think whether it's formal or not. And if you're not using them, it is going to have a kind of artificial sound to it and it is going to slow you down also.
And it's also important to remember how much using contractions is also going to help your listening comprehension because if you're always listening for I will or he will and even reductions and contractions, so he will not only becomes He'll
but in American English it becomes "hill". And then if it's in the middle of the sentence, we're going to drop that H and we're going to say "ill". So I don't think he'll go. I don't think he'll think ill, ill, ill. So it's crucial. for understanding. And there are certain language groups, like Chinese especially, don't like to use contractions.
I don't know why. So certain language groups, you need to a little more insistent on that. Yeah. But American English. Absolutely. Contractions and reductions. Reductions, not so much, but for listening comprehension, yes. Do you need to use reductions in your speech?
Dropping H's and pronouncing T O as T instead of to go to the store, go to the, we don't say go to the store if you're not familiar with that, the tap T and how the T changes to, you probably don't have that really in Nigerian English, but the T's, how it changes depending on the position in the word I think it's really something to master.
I work with my students a lot on that. Yes. And you made a good point. This really increases your listening skills as well. Maybe you don't like personally need to speak like that, but you do need to be able to identify those sounds. And so I do think as we listen to native speakers more, we start to realize that they do this.
This actually happened with me. With Spanish because with my wife, she's from Cartagena and she speaks Spanish in a certain way. And they also like to try to speak faster and cut off sounds of the words. And I've actually learned to speak Spanish like that sometimes just because that's what I hear every day.
So the more you hear a specific dialect or accent, the more you will be able to repeat it. So guys, moving on to the next question. We're going to talk about what practice methods can you use to improve your pronunciation? So what are some practice methods? You can start, Peter.
Yeah. Thank you so much. Practical methods. I'll start by saying active listening. Because you can't speak until you've listened. And I always share a story whenever I talk about active listening. All right. There was a particular mother who had a son say these words, two plus two, the son of a b***h is four.
Upon hearing that she was really vexed, who told you that? And then the son said the math teacher at school so the following day, the, when the Jeanne's laughing so hard. I'm trying to think what he actually said that the kid understood it. Yeah, so they got there and they called the math teacher to defend herself.
Are you teaching these children vulgar words? And then she said, no, I didn't say that. What did you say? She said, two plus two, the sum of which is four. That's so funny. Yeah. Yeah. Jeanne's laughing really hard. Yeah. The sum of which is four. The boy heard the son of a b***h is four. Active listening is paramount, right? Yeah. Before you can even say you want to improve your pronunciation. So that's my take. That's my first point. Active listening. And then you can maybe imitate. You can imitate native speakers, right?
You can listen to them and say, okay, your opinion. I heard Tom Cruise, the American actor, said, I didn't ask your opinion. I didn't ask your opinion. He said, I didn't ask your opinion. So when I heard that, I said, wow, your opinion. Sounded like a word, like just three syllables. I really liked that and I grabbed it,
so you're imitating the natives and then before you know it, it becomes part of you. You just sound natural in the end. Let me allow Jeanne to add to the points I mentioned. Jeanne, over to you. Oh, there are so many great techniques to use. Yeah so I love to use Youglish for one thing especially to put maybe a phrase in there or, for example go to the.
Okay, and you can put that in quotes and it will search YouTube videos for whatever language area that you want, US or England. And then and then you can slow it down a little bit, which is very helpful. And then you can practice repeating. However, if you're going to do repetition, with shadowing, which you should but you really need to record yourself.
And then compare your recording to what you're hearing because you, and even looking in the mirror can be helpful as well. Because if you're just like, if it's coming out of your mouth and you're like, Oh yeah, I said it right. But then you listen to yourself and you're like, Oh, that didn't really sound like the native speaker.
What am I doing wrong? And so if you get a good video where they're, in front of the camera, you can slow it down a little bit. And then really notice what's happening with their mouth and maybe what your mouth is doing different. So that's one. And then another technique, which I got from some of my students is to find someone whose voice and accent you really like
and try to emulate that. So you can practice shadowing with that person. My one Chinese student loved the guy from suits, this TV program called suits. It's about lawyers. And he's I love that guy. That's how I want to speak. And I was like, cool. Then go for it and practice, find a monologue that he has and try to imitate him.
Eventually it's not going to be. It's not going to be you sounding like that person because your voice is, it's always going to be your own, but it gives you a model. And because there's so many different accents that it helps you, I think, to zone in on, on one particular way of speaking.
Yes. Lots of great methods guys. And we do have Blessing here saying that the contractions and the rule is basically applied to writing, right? We're not going to write contractions in formal situations, and that is true. Yes, but in speaking it might be more common. We might use it a little less, but in general, as native speakers, we don't really think about using contractions, we just naturally use them.
In that formal situation, we're not really trying to, reel them back in either. I do think maybe with blending some words, we might use a little less in formal situations like wanna and gonna, but we will still blend a lot of words together.
Picking back off of what you said Oluwatuye, about what was the word, your opinion, right? We say your opinion. Yeah. And this happens because we have that consonant youR, and that vowel, O, and we're going to merge those sounds together, your opinion, and we do that a lot when a word ends in a consonant and that next sound is a vowel, we're going to be merging those sounds together.
So that's a good trick to look out for, and I think a good method to practice that is reading out loud and look for these details and Look for the merges that native speakers do and become familiar with them and practice reading out loud. And to make that exercise even better, you could record yourself, which might be uncomfortable in the beginning.
I hate hearing myself on camera, but now that I've been making videos and doing lives like this, I've definitely become more familiar with it listening to myself because I have to edit the video. So I have to hear myself many times. So I just recommend that you guys just be patient with yourself.
You'll get more comfortable hearing yourself on camera and you will notice where you can improve your pronunciation. So that's one of the tips I have. And also I think you guys mentioned shadowing. Yes. Do you recommend this method, Jeannie? Shadowing? Very much. Very much and I do recommend working with someone like I have a couple of videos that are specifically actually, I think I need to post them on my YouTube.
They were on a different channel. But specifically designed for students to shadow. So they're slowed down a little bit. They're, you have the text right in front of you. If you're trying to shadow someone who's speaking very fast there are so many subtleties
that you may miss. I recommend looking specifically for some shadowing videos to start. And then, as you get better and more advanced, then definitely move up and that hopefully you'll be able to shadow a movie, for example, or an interview, or something like that. But shadowing is great even if it's too fast for you, imitate the melody also move your body with it.
If they're going bah, then move your body because maybe your first language is more like up up. Okay. And we're like ha. Okay. Oh my God. Can you believe she said that?
Okay. It's very much in your body. It's true. So yeah. That's how you find that rhythm. Yeah. It's so true. Yeah. Moving your body in a different way from your throat, relaxing your throat, relaxing your mouth, and letting the sound come from your chest area.
Rather than maybe if you have a different language and it's really like up here in the face and then your English is never gonna sound native because you speak like this, and it's ah, let it drop down. Because in English we're more relaxed and it has a totally different sound just listen to someone singing in Spanish.
They're like like a mariachi. Okay, and it's all here in the front. Okay, and Listen to somebody singing, like Elvis Presley, right? It's all down here. So that's a fun, somebody's laughing there. Oh, yeah. No, but it's true. It's true, Jeannie. Yeah. A very entertaining way to express it as well.
Yes. Yeah, there's just so many nuances, when it comes to accent. It's not just. Specific sounds. It's the whole body. Yeah, and if you're only trying to make the sound, but you're not using, the facial expressions and body language, it also seems very robotic. It's all of it together. It's true.
Yeah. No, Jeannie, you've mentioned some great resources, so I will say it was Jeannie that introduced me to YouGlish.com super awesome resource. You basically put in a word or an expression that you want to hear. It finds native speakers saying it in videos. So it's not like that AI robotic sound of hearing the word or expression, you're getting that real life practice.
One good example that I remember from Youglish was a buddy of mine, a buddy of mine. Okay. We don't just say a buddy of mine. The guy was saying abuddyamine. And so using this app will help you realize how you can merge those sounds together, use those contractions and find the rhythm to improve your accent or pronunciation.
And Jeannie, you also mentioned you have some resources for shadowing. Is that something you could share with us ? I can. No, let me look because they were on my old account on another website and I should be able to put them up on my Maybe I'll just put them up on my Facebook page and then on my YouTube also.
Yeah I'll put that on my list of things to do today. I can put it in the description as well for students to have access to these different resources. Youglish the shadowing exercises. What about you? Do you have any resources that you recommend? Maybe BBC Learning English. Lots of videos for you to watch. Yeah, so that can help anybody who wants to learn. Or, you could just Reach out to me, yes, for sure. But you said also, so BBC Learning English and what else? And myself! Oh, yes. Of course. Yes, having a teacher and experts can certainly help you improve. And I think much more faster as well if you're doing it on your own, you're going to waste a lot of time doing that research when you have a teacher there to guide you, you just apply the information, BBC.
They have, I think it's a six minute podcast on BBC. That's really good. For people that yeah don't have so much free time. This can be a great method to practice your listening and doing some shadowing the six minute podcast for sure. And then, yeah, let's go ahead and talk about what we can offer as professionals and helping you improve your pronunciation.
So go ahead, you can start Oluwatoye, how do you help your students improve pronunciation? Yeah basically all those things we talked about shadowing, listening to the sounds, blending the sounds, watching movies, yeah, okay, so you help your students learn how to blend the sounds during your lessons.
Yeah, how to blend sounds, how to transcribe words, how to apply the stress placement. Primary stress and secondary stress ? And of course intonation. Alright, so the rising tone. The falling tone
so all those things together will make a kind of holistic approach, right? To the class. And ultimately the person gets better. I'm training somebody right now, she works with some foreign organizations and she, she's Igbo, right? So at first her boss, usually complains that, oh what are you saying?
What's this? What's this? So she has to come to me for classes, right? , and now she told me that boss. is now saying, Oh, you've really improved on your pronunciation, so that really put me off as a good testimony, okay. Yeah, sounds like a great method thank you Oluwatoye
and what about you, Jeannie? How do you help your students? Yeah, my my classes tend to develop a little more organically. So I start with a free assessment. Anyone can sign up for a free assessment and a one on one call, and we'll go over your assessment and how we might be able to work together. For some people, it's good to start in a group.
I'm going to have a small group starting in the next week for other people, take a month or two months of classes just to see make the investment in yourself try it out and see how much there is to learn because there's really a lot and it can be overwhelming If you're trying to do it on your own there's definitely things you can do on your own But then to meet once a week or twice a week with a coach who's going to tell you like yeah You're headed in the right direction or not I think that's I think it's super important like AI can only help you so much I've intentionally made mistakes using some apps and it's saying, yeah, great job.
And I'm like, really, like I said the student is a partner in the learning process with me. So I might say, you know what, we really need to work on this sound. But then they might say, you know what? I hate when I have to pronounce this sound and I actually change the word so I don't have to use that sound.
So it's Oh, okay, then let's work on that. And so you can gain some confidence around that. And then we will work on individual phonemes, individual sounds, especially ones that get confused like E and IH, like green and a pin or green and grin, for example.
But then I incorporate also the, the melody and the stress patterns and things like that , because if they say something like a greenhouse, the plants are in the green house
okay, and you're like, okay, so it's a house that's green or is it one of those like hot places where you grow plants because that's a greenhouse. Okay. So getting, no, there's a difference between a green house and a greenhouse. And that's like descriptive phrases versus compound nouns and things like that.
So yeah. Yes. Adding the emphasis and how fast you say that word is very important in communicating the correct message. Yeah. It's true, Jeannie. I didn't think about green house and greenhouse, but it's true. Oh yeah. Yes. Those sound like some great methods as well, Jeannie. And in my classes my students will speak with me conversationally, and we will also look at small texts, and they will read those out loud.
And when I notice they have pronunciation errors, I'll type it in the chat for them. I'll also type it in a feedback document that I will send to you so that you can see what pronunciation errors you are making and then you can go use apps like Youglish to try to perfect those sounds.
And continue practicing with me, of course, in the lessons. But this is how I help students improve on the sounds that they're making mistakes. Also, if you're making a recurring mistake let's say You're not pronouncing words that start with H correctly. I'm going to send you an exercise to work on that specific sound.
So that's how I like to help my students practice pronunciation. Guys before we wrap up our chat here today, do you want to leave any final tips or information about your services? Alright final tip, follow me, listen to me, and pay me. Laughter.
Yeah, that's alright. My email is in the chat, so you can always send a message, and then we can take you from where you are, to where Jeanne is right now, and where Frankie is. You want to sound like them? I'm the link. All right, that's it guys. Thank you so much for having me. Okay, You're not shy Peter.
I put my my Website in the chat and don't be shy about reaching out for your free assessment I'd love to talk to you and there's no obligation. I'm not going to force you to take classes with me I have a pronunciation group that's forming and it will be a maximum of 10 people.
That's a great way to get started with accent reduction, working with a coach and see how that goes. Yes. And guys, make sure you send me your links. I'll make sure I include them so students can find you if they want to work with you. Okay. And so guys, yeah, with Peach Teach English. I will offer you a free courtesy class where I can identify your level And we can find the right plan for you and I can answer any questions that you have. And I also have a blog on Substack where I post articles and videos to help you improve your English.
So you can follow me there. I hope to see you guys there. Thank you, Peter and Jeannie.
And I look forward to keeping in touch with you guys. Bye.
