Triangle Speech Services is the private, professional practice of Judith L. Bergman, a licensed speech-language pathologist (SLP) who specializes in foreign accent and regional dialect modification and related communication skills. I offer customized, individual tutorials to corporate-sponsored and self-enrolled individuals who speak English fluently but with moderate to severe accents that create challenges and frustrations in the workplace. 

   The men and women who have enrolled in accent modification training with me in the last twelve years have already demonstrated a passion for their chosen professional fields, for providing expertise to serve their companies, clients or customers.
   They have come to this country, some alone and some with a spouse and have persevered to overcome many challenges , including improving their mastery of American English and learning more about American culture and customs. In short, they have demonstrated  great " promise" i.e. great potential for further success yet many seemed "stuck" in mid-career. 
    After their free phone consultation and their Information Session, each decided that we offered a great opportunity to have a whole new experience of spoken English.  They learned that spoken words and sentences are acoustic or sound patterns that have instantaneous meaning to native listeners. Accents distort these patterns and slow down or sometimes completely block understanding. They learned to "hear" the sound patterns of words and sentences instead of "seeing" them spelled. They learned the correct speech muscle movements. They learned that when they pronounced words correctly, it sounded and felt "weird and strange" at first. They learned that speech habits can only be changed through guided and persistent practice

  We all know how young children are totally engaged and alive to the present moment. This is not a quality that you have to sacrifice to be an "adult."  In fact you can add the extra dimension of non-judgmental self-reflection!
   For example, watch yourself in team meetings. Do you feel invisible?  Perhaps, after many experiences of not being understood when you spoke up, of being asked to "slow down" or to "repeat," you made a decision "to hide" and to rely on written communication.
   Watch yourself in informal gatherings. Do you usually eat lunch at your desk and not really socialize much with colleagues?  How comfortable are you speaking to other professionals at conferences? 
   Conversely, in what (English) speaking situations with what people do you feel relaxed and accepted and comfortable?