PRELIMINARY QUESTIONNAIRE

 

1)       How would you describe your accent (strengths and weaknesses)?

I used to be very proud of my accent since I was a broadcast announcer at university. Now it becomes my weakness and blocks my further development in North American.

2)       How have other people described your accent (strengths and weaknesses)?

They think that I am just out of the mainstream.

3)       What results do you expect to achieve through accent training?

At least I know the techniques which can assist me to correct my accent; know the reasons why my speech is different from North Americans and what are the causes of my different pronunciation. So I would know how to maximally reduce my accent and improve it scientifically. I know that it is going to be life long efforts and I am not expecting that it is going to happen one night.

4)       How long are you prepared to commit to accent training?

It has to depend on my finical situation. For the training program, I am happy with your offer in the email.

5)       How much time will you be able to set aside for daily practice?

Wow, I read a lot and write a lot everyday. Since I am so busy and do not have a lot of time talk to friends, I would say my oral practice is limited. But I speak English everyday and I can read it aloud everyday. Like a snail, I am making a little progress everyday. You know what, most of my Chinese friends said their spoken English was getting worse since they came to North American. Everyday I meet with my graduate fellow students. I talk to them and they never correct my speaking errors. They just humbly comment it, “we can understand”. However, from their eyes I can see what is that mean. “My ear is tortured, shut up.” I understand. At the master level, people will assume you should have capability to do or express certain things without other people’s guidance.

6)       Describe any previous training/experience with speech, accent and/or language training.

Not too much. I had some lessons on the rhythm and tones.

7)       Describe a personal or professional improvement goal that you set and successfully accomplished.

A personal goal will be that talk to people with fewer accents and make their ears comfortable.

A professional goal will be that talk to public in a professional manner and they can feel my accents are my strengths.  

8)       If you trusted your speech coach, what would he need to know about you, to train you most effectively?

Firstly, be frankly to me. I want to be criticized all the time when I open my mouth. Hopefully, I can have a good communication with my speech coach.

I am not afraid to talk and actually I like talk and express my feelings. I like to recite beautiful words and wave them in my daily life. Since I am female I can imitate other people very quickly.

I want my speech coach to find out my fundamental barriers such as the position of my tough, my mouth; some pronunciation of critical words which kill my whole talking.

9)       Add any other observations or comments you feel might be important regarding your speech and accent.

I know speech is a science. A good speaker not just has fluent English but also knows the way how to organize the words and the contents and use the techniques to express them effectively. I never expect my accent will disappear anytime in my life. It is life long study. I found that one of my speech milestone was happened during one of my graduate courses. My professor, Dr. Luk, a Chinese lady, came to Canada when she was five. I found that she uses her tones and rhythms differently from what I heard from other second language speakers. She manages them in a very beautiful way. So I started to follow her and I changed dramatically after that term. Also because of her wisdom and confidence, her speech always includes the most beautiful words that I have ever heard.