Accent Reduction: Mindset Tips for Successful Communication (Part 2)
In Mindset Tips for Successful Communication (Part 1), we addressed the first 5 accent reduction mindset tips for jump-starting your progress in the beginning stages and for boosting your effectiveness in later stages. Here are the remaining 5 mindset tips.
Maximize Accent Training through Mindset Tips
- Celebrating your communication successes will empower you to continue to improve. You will feel good about yourself and the effort you’re putting in. Acknowledge your specific challenge speech sounds and rule patterns in a non-judgmental way with curiosity versus unhealthy criticism. For example, instead of saying to yourself “You’ve been trying to correct this English sound and you’re getting nowhere with it”, say “I feel good that I’ve been putting the effort into shaping this American English sound into its target. I know my efforts are paying off.”
- View a busy schedule as an opportunity for quickly and efficiently completing your practice between accent modification sessions with your trainer. Knowing that you have a brief period of time to complete your practice alleviates apprehension that the practice will be a daunting task.
- Embrace the idea that by learning a new accent, you will not lose connection to your culture and heritage. The goal of accent reduction is to minimize communication barriers. Your native culture and heritage are yours. You can stay connected to them at the same time as you improve your ability to communicate in your non-native language.
- Approaching your non-native accent with a sense of humor will make your journey more fun. Taking a lighthearted perspective will help you to be more patient and accepting of any mistakes that you might make.
- Purposefully setting up scenarios to practice your accent techniques will mean taking risks. Practicing your newly acquired skills in functional practical everyday situations might be a little scary. Nonetheless, taking these risks will prove to be well worth it. View the “mistakes” as “learning opportunities.” Do an experiment to see if your fears that people will judge you if you make a mistake are really true. Observe their nonverbal and verbal behavior. If it’s appropriate, ask them if they feel frustrated that your American English isn’t “perfect.” Chances are that you’ll put your worries to rest.
Summary
Mindset is such an important part of many endeavors, including accent reduction. Briefly, the 10 mindset tips involve: celebration, trust, risk, perspective on time management, responsibility, teamwork, and practice. Hopefully you too, like my clients, will find that these 10 mindset tips for successful communication empower you to maximize your accent training for powerful results. To your accent mindset, Cher
June 15th, 2014 in
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Thank you for another great blog post, Cher! ~ I love the creativity of the tips you offer here! 🙂
Cher, love the idea of mistakes as “learning opportunities” because it makes us more willing to try things.
Our communication isn’t as much for us, but for those who listens to us; so what you’re saying here Cher makes so much sense to minimize the barriers for more effective communication.
Great post! Mindset is key:)
Hey Cher,
My personal favorites were number 2 (for myself – good to get me to do things I don’t want to;) and #3 – very sweet and very important to remember. I’ve done a great deal of traveling. With all the modern technology and cultural crossover, a real muddying of culture is happening – for better and for worse. It’s nice to keep to positive aspects of our mother culture alive. It’s an important part of the flavor of life:)
Dorothy, thank you for your heartfelt and insightful response. You said it metaphorically and succinctly: culture is an important part of the flavor of life 🙂 And yes, #2 gets us to do things we don’t necessarily want to do yet which are good for us.
Smiles to you and thank you,
Cher
Mateja, thank you. Mindset becomes easier as it’s practiced too… 🙂
Cher
Barbara,
You summed it up. Too, when we express our thoughts, it does act as a cognitive tool for synthesizing information 🙂 Thank you for your comments.
Cher
Bonnie, yes, the term “learning opportunities” reframes our perspective into one that encourages us 🙂
Cher
Tina, thank you 🙂 This was a really fun article to write.
Cher
Really appreciate the focus on keeping one’s culture as one progresses in learning another language accent. So important to know improving one’s ability to speak another language is not about letting go of valuable cultural distinctions which help one to feel connected. Insightful blog post1
Let me see if I got this right, Cher.
1. Celebrate successes.
2. Look for opportunities to practice new skills
3. Recognize that though we change, our roots remain
4. Use humor and have fun.
5. Purposely take risks.
Sounds like a great mindset for ANY undertaking. Love it!
Cher your 10 mindset tips for effective communication are brilliant and can be applied to success in business and in life as well 🙂 Thank you
Teena
http://coupletherapyconnection.com
Hi Cher, I love how you apply mindset techniques to communication. People are becoming more familiar with mindfulness so it is a perfect pairing. And a great reminder about mindfulness in general. Brilliant!
Teena,
Yes! These tips are multifunctional 🙂 You’re very welcome.
To your brilliant mindset,
Cher
Kailean,
Absolutely accurate 🙂 Yes, you can use these mindset tips in multiple undertakings.
To your empowered mindset,
Cher
What’s up all, here every one is sharing these kinds of knowledge, therefore it’s good to read this web site,
and I used to visit this blog everyday.
Benito,
I’m glad to hear that you’re enjoying these articles 🙂
Cher