Case Study: Biostatistical Engineer
I'm a Biostatistical Engineer in the Life Sciences, and my native language is Mandarin Chinese.
Although I am fluent in English, I realized I had an inability to communicate with clarity and ease. Not only did others have difficulty understanding and hearing the messages I was trying to convey, but I lacked the ability to understand others when they spoke to me. Due to these misunderstandings, I lacked confidence when I spoke or when I had to present in front of people. Also, my performance appraisal consistently indicated the need for improved communication skills.
My company sponsored a nine week small group program with Accents International. Together with four of my co-workers, I participated in online sessions, which incorporated live visual cues in the pronunciation training. I also used audio cues to "tune my ear" for accurate pronunciations. Each week, I came to the session and also submitted multiple personal recordings for assessment and coaching. The practice assignments were self-paced and allowed me to work on my specific areas of difficulty. I improved my nasal consonant sounds and intonation, learned to eliminate extra vowel sounds, and began to recognize words with silent syllables.
After the training, I was able to self-correct mispronunciations. In fact, during my recent performance appraisal, there were comments on my remarkable communication skills improvements. I now have a better understanding of spoken messages due to correctly identifying pronunciations, and my speech improvements have enabled successful working relationships with other business groups.