HOW ACCENT AMERICA! COMPARES WITH OTHER PRONUNCIATION PROGRAMS

With so many accent reduction programs on the market, it’s hard to know what makes one stand out from another. As with any product, beware of far-reaching claims that guarantee total elimination or quick results. Look at the content to see what benefits are realistic. Here are some ways to see how Accent America! measures up.

How do the audio CDs compare?

Accent America! contains over 12 hours of high-quality audio CDs filled with more hours of audio exercises and practice opportunities. The CD tracks are divided so that you can easily repeat specific parts of a lesson, allowing you to practice, repeat, and return for review at any time.

Why so many CDs?

The complete program is divided into 20 chapters or modules. Having 20 CDs allows you to grab the CD that corresponds to the module you want to work on, allowing you to more easily find the lesson.

How are the lessons structured?

Each sound is taught individually. First a tongue twister allows you to hear the sound repeated over and over again.

Since lip shape is often necessary to properly pronounce a sound, particularly vowels, the lip shape is shown, providing a model so you can look in a mirror and compare it with the shape of your lips.

Vowels and consonants are a sum of their parts. A simple features chart allows you to focus on the feature that is most difficult for you, making it easier to understand how to correct your pronunciation of each sound.

Most English sounds have multiple spellings, some obvious and some more surprising. Alternate spellings of the sound are listed, helping you to recognize less obvious spellings of common words.

Words are modeled so you can practice each sound at the beginning, middle, and end of a word, focusing on where you have the most difficulty.

Sentence practice gives multiple opportunities to practice the sound as many times as you need to in flowing speech. All pronunciation exercises are pronounced twice, allowing you to listen, pronounce, then listen again.

Phonetic transcriptions on the back of each page of exercises gives you the opportunity to confirm what you’ve heard modeled on the audio CD.

Discrimination practice compares and contrasts each sound with sounds often substituted by non-native speakers. Features charts and word, listening, and pronunciation practice all compare and contrast difficult pairs, giving you the opportunity to listen and practice distinguishing each pair of difficult sounds.

What else is different about this book?

Rate of speaking guidance explains how to measure your speaking rate and adjust if you speak too quickly.