More and more immigrants are learning the proper way to speak English. This is not just occurring in Los Angeles but throughout the United States, it seems that immigrants want to lose their native accents to become “Americanized”. This kind of classes which help reduce accents have been around for many years however according to a study done by the American Speech-Language Hearing Assn. reported an increase of 15% from 2005 to 2006.But not only are accent reduce classes growing, so are books which teach how to speak English correctly.
The author of the book and CD set “Speak English Like an American”, Amy Gillet, said the book copies have tripled in the past years. Her book was released in 2004 and only sold 1,500 copies, today the count is 5,000.
The main priority people are seeking these accent reduction classes are not only to seek better job opportunities but to help them in their everyday social life. Many are very self-conscious about their speech and want to sound “normal”.
Jennie Lo, 43, of Culver City said her accent has been an embarrassment since she arrived in the United States from Taiwan in 1988.
"It was a handicap," she said. "I couldn't say the things I wanted to say." "I just want to feel good about myself," she said. "If I really work hard, if I practice every day, I can't be perfect. But I can be better."
These classes however don’t come cheap, usually for an hour class it’s about $100 for an individual class. Imagine having a 13-week session it could range from $1,200 to $2,500, that can be one or two months of a house mortgage, leaving many immigrants already living pay check to pay check with no funds.
According to Dennis Baron, a linguistics professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign says taking course is a waste of money. Baron says that the only way to reduce the accent is be calming it and that takes years of interaction with native English speakers.
No comments:
Post a Comment