Perhaps you are a parent with young children. Finding a moment, or indeed the headspace to commit to anything other than feeding, cleaning or entertaining your children may feel utterly impossible. Maybe you are running a startup, and every waking moment requires focused dedication on keeping your business afloat. Or a doctor, who has dedicated your life to the health of others, and can only find the time for a few hours of sleep between shifts.
We all know that in much of the modern world, humans are busy, busy, busy. In the midst of the chaos, that commitment to the accent modification journey might feel a distant memory. It could be that we feel that a decision was made on a whim to work on something that had been on our mind for a while. But realistically, can the commitment required to make such a transformational change truly work with our intense schedules?
We believe so.
The majority of clients find the online appointments with a specialist at The Accent Centre a manageable commitment. But if the work stops here, progress will be slow, with several steps forwards followed by one or two steps backwards, as sessions will focus primarily on recapping material, rather than progression.
As creatures of habit, we can begin to apply new habits to our daily personal and professional lives. We ask first for a commitment of at least 5 minutes a day. To begin with, we recommend you practice alone so as to build awareness of your own oral posture, as well as pronunciation and prosodic features. This can be done out loud at breakfast when reading a newspaper, when checking your emails on the sofa at the end of the day, or in the mirror after brushing your teeth. After a few sessions, you may feel ready to debut certain features of your accent to trusted family and friends. We suggest that you are selective with whom you practice in order to avoid ill-considered, negative comments, that risk damaging your sense of commitment to the process. Once you’ve found your happy listeners, you might throw out some of your newly discovered sounds by the water cooler at work, to your children when reading them a bed time story, or at the pub at end of play on a Friday.
The goal may be, of course, to apply these sounds completely and entirely to your personal and professional lives. The gradual exposure of the sounds you have acquired over time will help you to feel not only more comfortable with the change, but also gift you a sense of ownership over them – a truly important step, not to be missed.
By incorporating your practice within your daily habits, the process will become less effortful, and more organic, which will encourage the most effective and longest lasting results.
Of course, for those on our GROUPS and FULL ACCESS plans, you will also have varying degrees of assistance from us in order to hold yourself accountable to your commitment to independent practice. See https://atomic-temporary-213044056.wpcomstaging.com/plans-pricing/ for more information on the options available to you.
