American Accent Training - Online / Hangouts / Chandler AZ

Sortino International Training, NC:
The purpose for the Accent 4 Professionals program is to help career-minded people tackle the pronunciation issues that have prevented them from total satisfaction when speaking in American English. It is a program of study in American English pronunciation.

We help students
*re-learn correct pronunciation even when they have lived in the US for many years and have learned incorrect pronunciation
* reduce the confusion when reading in English and not knowing how to pronounce certain words
*create an personal study habit to incorporate 20 minutes of study a day

We do this by
*teaching how the tongue, lips, jaw and teeth move to go from one sound to another smoothly
*teaching how to find the root in each word, identify the primary vowels and their relationship to consonants
*teaching how to self-correct target sounds and features for greater daily improvements
*teaching the patterns of intonation and rhythm in American English

Maria has been an English instructor since 1996, and has a Master Degree in Teaching English as a Second Language.

She has taught English in the United States in graduate schools, universities, community colleges and in corporations. Her specialization is training professionals to speak clearly, using American English.

Our Focus:
Students need to speak and write English at an intermediate level. This means you need to already speak English at your job daily.  

The focus of this training is on making your accent closer to the Standard American accent. Your speech will be clear and understandable and you will feel more confident. My unique method : transcription. With this method, you learn the best skill of all in accent training - how to correct yourself. Many self-paced programs do not do what a trainer can do - show you how to correct yourself. They just teach you how to mimic and repeat. You will easily forget the correct sounds the next time you speak. Your learning is not internalized until you focus on it. Transcription gives you this opportunity. You are in charge of choosing which sounds and aspects of the English accent to improve. You will monitor yourself. You are in charge, so you will make real progress. You will be provided the methods and structure to create a daily practice routine.

Accent training is an ongoing process of improvement.

That being said, you will see an improvement after the first week of practicing 20 minutes every day.

In private instruction, after 6 sessions you will have built the foundation for self-correction and learned the rules and correct pronunciation for many of your problem areas. You may need an additional 6 sessions to complete the learning of your target sounds and features.

12 weeks of private instruction = at least 50% improvement in pronunciation

In group classes, we have 4 classes using 2 textbooks. The first textbook is used for the first three classes. The second textbook is used for the first and last class. Each class is 8 weeks long. Advance to the next class after completing each class.