I'm frustrated with my pronunciation!

[Catherineli]

Hello every friend!

 

How is everyone doing? It's been almost four years since I became a member on CFL. I truly love our forum.

 

After I become an ESL teacher for Tulsa Public Schools, I'm more and more frustrated with my own English accent or English pronunciation. As an English teacher, I have to be a living dictionary standing in the classroom. It's a requirement of myself and from myself.

 

Yesterday I taught Spanish-speaking children second grade math. I only taught them simple addition. But these children are so hard to teach. It seems they will never learn. Some of them don't know how to count and don't know what equals five plus three. They have their main teacher to learn from. I observed their learning and teaching many times. Yesterday I taught a group of children. The other teacher taught a group of kids. We taught in one room. This is the least that I like American classroom. The teachers often separate the kids into several groups in one room. Some go on the computer to learn. Some sit on the floor learning things by playing games. Some are drawn to the teacher who is teaching something else. All these groups are doing their own business at the same time in one room. How can they focus on learning? My voice is too weak. I only keep my own reservations. When I can't make the kids learn, I'm very frustrated. I thought I could be the best teacher but now I know that I have to practice speaking Okie English perfectly. But I can't! No matter how hard I tried. I can't speak English the way you guys do. What shall I do? I'm so frustrated!!!

Thank you for being my friends, everyone!

I would like to use my story to entertain you guys for a happy three days!

 

Catherine

[amberjack1234]

Catherine, the best way is to only immerse yourself with english speakers. Liren came here speaking very good english but with room for improvement. I don't think that there are many Chinese born folks that will never have an accent but that is ok. After Liren immersed herself with only english speakers her english speaking skills improved quite dramatically but she never lost the accent of course. It was not easy for her as she talked to 50-100 people in person and on the telephone every day. Now that we have closed the doors on the business and have very few friends. both our choice, she is back at about the level that she was at when she came here.

[Randy W]

Hello every friend!

 

How is everyone doing? It's been almost four years since I became a member on CFL. I truly love our forum.

 

After I become an ESL teacher for Tulsa Public Schools, I'm more and more frustrated with my own English accent or English pronunciation. As an English teacher, I have to be a living dictionary standing in the classroom. It's a requirement of myself and from myself.

 

Yesterday I taught Spanish-speaking children second grade math. I only taught them simple addition. But these children are so hard to teach. It seems they will never learn. Some of them don't know how to count and don't know what equals five plus three. They have their main teacher to learn from. I observed their learning and teaching many times. Yesterday I taught a group of children. The other teacher taught a group of kids. We taught in one room. This is the least that I like American classroom. The teachers often separate the kids into several groups in one room. Some go on the computer to learn. Some sit on the floor learning things by playing games. Some are drawn to the teacher who is teaching something else. All these groups are doing their own business at the same time in one room. How can they focus on learning? My voice is too weak. I only keep my own reservations. When I can't make the kids learn, I'm very frustrated. I thought I could be the best teacher but now I know that I have to practice speaking Okie English perfectly. But I can't! No matter how hard I tried. I can't speak English the way you guys do. What shall I do? I'm so frustrated!!!

Thank you for being my friends, everyone!

I would like to use my story to entertain you guys for a happy three days!

 

Catherine

 

 

When I taught high school, one of the classes each math teacher had was Fundamentals of Math. Most kids in these classes could handle addition and subtraction (positive numbers only), but multiplication and division were pretty much only for the brighter ones. They could only pay attention for about 2 or 3 minutes at a time. I would "instruct" the class for about that length of time, and then have a mimeographed work/play sheet for them to "work" on the rest of the period (around 1978).

[Greg.D.]

I know/knew a guy who came from mainland to the U.S. for university who dedicated himself to eliminating his accent and he did. Very well. But, in your case, your accent is probably not an issue. If you continue to improve it, do not make it match the local accent; those kids watch tv, after all, and can understand a wide range of accents.

 

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=how+to+improve+esl+accent&t=icab&ia=web

 

will give you many links to resources for working on your accent, if you want.

 

As Randy says, they have limitations. And, as you say, there are distractions in the room. But, I think they would focus on a video game if they had one in their hands. Maybe you can do more to make your instruction fun (there must be YouTube videos on "making math fun". Also: rewards. The real world runs on rewards, why can't school? Maybe you can buy little trinkets for prizes they can pick up at the end of the day to take home.

[Catherineli]

Thank you for so many good ideas. Thank you Randy, thank you Greg, and thank you Larry. Like Randy said, their attention span is quite short. Their main language is Spanish. I don't speak English the way their main teacher does. People can't tell if I'm saying wall or war, for instance. I don't mind my accent but I do need a clear pronunciation that will make me a decent English teacher.

 

Good idea that I should tip the kids for doing a good job! From now on I'm immersing myself in the English environment but I know I've passed the age to learn to say a foreign language.

Best wishes to everyone!

[Allon]

Bear in mind, Catherine, that linguistic learning passes at age 25. As you get older, the ability to hear and grasp linguistic changes (going from language to language) with meaning gets less and less. It is the reason why Baby Talk (as we call inarticulate Chinglish) becomes acceptable, since it is as far as you can go -- for the moment. My wife is 52.

 

But with motivation it can be overcome. Surely you have it. Have a good patient person listen to your English speaking and have her note what trouble spots you have. For my wife, it was mostly "ssss"'s and "th"'s. Sometimes the L sound.

 

The S problem is purely hearing correctly on her part. The Mandarin word "xiao" has an "Sh" sound in it. And the way Manchurians pronounce "xie xie" also has an S sound. So there is really only her ear getting in the way. We practice it while driving or doing something mundane so it will catch her autonomic nervous system (where you learn "by heart") off guard and forces her to quickly think and pronounce the words, Sit Down, Shut up, and Save me.

 

For TH, which comes out with a shrill S sound strangely, like Sreee for Three, we have her practice "Three, thirty, thirteen" over and over. She "gets it" but it is not quite to the stage of being autonomic, without thinking.

 

I think also her teeth were a problem which speech therapists will tell you causes some learning difficulties since children have to overcome dental problems when they are young and ready to linguistically stretch and learn, but the wrong way. Her teeth were very crowded before we had them fixed. I think the Th problem is related to her adjusting to a better set of teeth.

 

In language, patience is a real virtue. We English speakers share the same difficulties with Chinese speakers. Mandarin is the most difficult language to learn for English speakers. And English is the most difficult for non-English speakers.

 

As to math, Randy is right. Math skills go only so far again depending on age much of the time. Calculators and computers don't help.

 

Good luck.

[danb]

Hi Catherine. You do realize that the rest of America don't speak like people from Oklahoma, don't you? Actually there are many local accents in the US. People from the South , Boston, Chicago and New York City and most other places have some type of accent. I googled the question, " How do I loose my foreign accent?" I got a lot of hits from that question: One site that had some good suggestion was:

 

http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/business-career/public-speaking/5-ways-to-reduce-your-accent

 

Several suggestions were given, like go to You Tube, to tape oneself and playback the tape, to imitate a particular person and there were other ideas. Also in the your school system do they have speech therapists that work with students? I am sure that they could give you some good suggestions.

 

One suggestion from me is to watch old reruns on TV. I think older reruns would be better than newer ones. Perhaps I Love Lucy would be a good one. Try to imitate Lucy. Or perhaps the The Dick Van Dyke Show or the Mary Tyler Moore Show. These are are all comedy shows. Good Luck. Danb

[Catherineli]

HI friends, thank you for being concerned. I know what is my problem in speaking English. There is nothing to do with my teeth, or my "th, or s" sound. I have taught English pronunciation lol. Ironically I just can't speak it the way native speakers do. Some friends correct my certain words. I can't even mimic correctly. The reason is my mom. She should be to blame. She never taught me English! I have several websites to practice speaking English. Here is one. https://www.duolingo.com/

 

 

Today, at English class, I had one girl who speaks English very well come to the front of the class playing as a teacher. I asked the other kids read after the girl. I made it clear that I was training them to be a future great speaker or a wonderful teacher. But I know I was looking for a way not to lead the kids into following my accent.

 

I didn't teach math today, but I went into the same math class that frustrated me the other day. I found their American teacher was frustrated as well. Several kids even can't count from one to ten. It's a normal second grade class, not in special education. No wonder Randy said, even at high school, they were only limited to addition and subtraction, positive only.

 

I wish I had a magic power!

[Catherineli]

I feel American government is funny. One way they want to block illegal immigration, another way, they offer free education to these illegal immigrant's offspring. I'm teaching these illegal people's children every day. I guess this is the reason that I love America.

[Greg.D.]

By the way, the students will NEVER learn your accent. Children of migrants never learn their parents' accent.

 

Children learn the accent of their peers, not their parents, not their teachers.

 

It sounded above like you were afraid they will adopt your accent.

Edited September 5, 2017 by Greg.D. (see edit history)

[Catherineli]

Yes, Greg, I'm very careful. I'm strict with myself being perfectionist.

Thank you for your idea. yes, children don't even adopt their parents' accent.

[True Blue]

Ms. Li,

 

Try this free software - https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/online-accent-reduction-for-non-native-english-speakers/id357661927?mt=2

 

Also watch these free videos - http://www.speakingyourbest.com/freevideolessons.html

 

Best of luck!

 

True Blue

Edited September 6, 2017 by True Blue (see edit history)

[Catherineli]

Hello Mr. Blue!!

Thank you very much for the websites! They are very practical for me. I favorite them right away.

Xiexie ni!

 

Best wishes

 

Catherine

[Allon]

Well, it would be interesting to hear what you believe is your "accent." For my wife, she has no accent other than the S and TH sound. IF you take those out of the conversation, she sounds as normal as any other American.

 

She turned to me while we were riding in the car and said, "It's gonna rain today."

 

Gonna is soooo American. I almost turned off the road I was laughing so hard.

[Catherineli]

"Your wify's gonna be my example" !