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Edison State Class featured in USA Today!

Sep 13, 2010

"We're doing business like gangbusters," said Judy Ravin, president of Ann Arbor, Mich.-based Accent Reduction Institute.

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association's most recent survey addressing accent modification showed its members spent an estimated 5.7% of their time providing accent-modification services in 2009, up from 3.7% in 2007.

That upward trend appears to be continuing, said Janet Brown, director of health care services in speech-language pathology for the association. "People are investing more in their jobs, to hold on to them," Brown says.

Accent-reduction "is controversial," says Andrés Tapia, the Chicago-based chief diversity officer at Hewitt Associates, a provider of human resources and outsourcing consulting services.

"There sometimes is heated debate whether an accent is an impediment to advancement," Tapia says. But "if an accent is so strong, their listeners truly cannot understand what they're saying, then I think accent-reduction is beneficial."

In Fort Myers, Fla., Edison State College offers a non-credit, accent-reduction course for the first time this fall, says college spokeswoman Catherine Bergerson. The initial class of 12 includes Richard Melillo, 40, a native of Venezuela who works at the Fort Myers Macy's department store and plans to study radiology technology at the college.

At the store, "some people are rude and say 'Can I speak with other salespeople here?' But normally, people are friendly and patient," says Melillo, who says he has studied English through public adult education since coming to the USA in 2008.

Most of the students in the Fort Myers course speak Spanish as their first language, but the course is open to people from any language background, teacher Carol Rommel says.

"The goal for me is to improve their intelligibility, not to make them sound like newscasters," Rommel says.

An accent "is part of your culture," she says. "All I give them is another option to use."

The accent-reduction course is new at Edison State, but about 120 miles away, in Tampa, the University of South Florida has held accent reduction classes for about 15 years, says Elissa Henderson, director of marketing for USF's continuing-education division.

Colleges and universities across the USA offer accent modification programs, including Washington State University, Arizona State University and Texas State University, an Internet search shows.

Steven Bo, director of Bayside, N.Y.-based AccentMaster.com, said his company has sold its pronunciation software to several universities, including Baruch College of the City University of New York system, the University of Delaware, Savannah (Ga.) Tech, the University of Kentucky and the University of Kansas. The company made a first-time sale in time for the fall term to Iowa State University's Speak/Teach program for international teaching assistants, Bo said.

Private speech therapists and pathologists have offered accent-reduction sessions nationwide for years, but lately more community colleges and universities are getting involved, says Ravin, whose business has had instructional contracts with the University of Michigan's schools of business and engineering.

"It helps the universities' credibility when graduating students interview, communicate well and can get jobs," she says.

Judy Farron, owner/director of Fort Myers Language Center, says that "experiencing some form of humiliation" — or fear of appearing different — often motivates people to seek the instruction.

Naples, Fla., office worker Erika Grispino, 22, recently took English pronunciation training from Farron.

"I went to high school here. I know what I'm saying," the Argentine native says. However, "I had some issues with my j's, pronouncing words like juice and shoes alike."

Grispino says the biggest benefit she got was "confidence."

"People understand me because now I'm not nervous," she says.

Barbara Franceschini of the American Language Center, University of California-Los Angeles Extension, says non-native speakers of English who attend the center's accent-modification programs "are very realistic. They've studied English in all manners and forms but never have taken a pronunciation class."

Though the number of people seeking help with accents is growing, Tapia says he cautions employers that in the global economy, "the accent of your employee might be more comprehensible than yours, to a growing number of your consumers."

Last Updated: September 13, 2010