Case Study: Food Manufacturing
As a professional in one of the world's leading organizations for food manufacturing, my command of English was already pretty good when I got to the United States. However, as I began to work here, I realized people couldn't understand me because of my pronunciation.
I knew I didn't need an ESL or other language class with grammar, vocabulary, reading and writing. What I did need was a pronunciation class.
I began training online one-on-one with an Accents International instructor, and I found that distance learning was a very effective way to learn. It was extremely interactive, and my instructor was always very "present" and accessible to me. I liked being able to practice by bringing up cultural questions with my instructor. For the last ten minutes of each class we just talked about my questions and I practiced in context. For instance, we discussed idioms, and I had questions about the way people talk and think in the US. My instructor understood where I was coming from because she's traveled all over the world.
I knew the program was a success when I had a conversation with the VP of my company shortly after training ended. We were discussing critical approaches our company is taking and he commented on how much easier it was to understand me. He was really happy for me, and probably for himself as well! He wondered what I'd been doing to make such a noticeable change, and I knew it was thanks to the work I'd done with Accents International.