More and more often, non-native speakers of American English, are seeking accent training or modification. You might ask yourself a few questions about this. Why are they doing this? Do they not like their accent? What occurred to make them decide to change this? Here are some of the answers I’ve been given.

• Sometimes people have a difficult time understanding me
• I can’t seem to get what I order at a restaurant
• I’m not sure exactly how to ask someone out on a date
• I’m tired of repeating myself
• I want communication to be easier

Accents are beautiful! Yes! They are beautiful, but imagine this… You’re going into a big presentation, and everyone will be listening to what you have to say about a topic you feel strongly about. As you progress through your slides, you notice people are wearing facial expressions that indicate confusion. Some people aren’t focusing any longer. You feel like you’re not getting your point across. This could happen at any presentation, right? But what if you added an accent to the mix? Could this have an impact on the presentation or your day-to-day conversations in general? Of course it could! Is it wrong to seek assistance in reducing communication breakdown? Absolutely not! Does everyone with an accent need to work on it? No way! Each person makes the decision for themselves if they feel they would like to seek training based on their own circumstances.

Actors go to accent training to learn to produce an accent for a part in a movie. CEOs may seek out accent modification to soften their accent when they’ve moved to a different part of the country. People have all kinds of different reasons for wanting to make changes. It boils down to this. Accents are beautiful and they are not an issue unless the person speaking feels it’s an issue for their ease of communication. They may be looking for assistance in articulating sounds that aren’t commonly used in their first language. They may be interested in working on the rhythm, stress and intonation of the General American Accent. Regardless of why they have chosen to initiate accent training, it’s for them to decide and them alone. In most cases, the individual’s goal isn’t to “get rid of” their accent. It’s simply to have the skills needed to modify their communication, if and when they choose to do so. A speech language pathologist is just one of the professionals that can be of assistance.