Accent softening/elocution

MrsTinks

Depending on your sons age that will come with time... Most people I speak to would never realise that I'm not british by birth and yet I only moved here when I was about 13/14... before that my english was... questionable.
My gramatical ability is still a little questionable but that is mainly down to having no interest in it and trying to learn 4 different language structures at once... My spelling and writing (when at work and not on forums) is very structured and correct with very few spelling mistakes being picked up by my spellcheck despite it being my second language and being mildly dyslexic.

Encourage your son to watch programs on TV and listen to books on tape to give him less of a regionalised accent. Unless he's interested and over 10 I wouldn't bother with any structured teaching to correct it.

meester

conradmum wrote: »

How old is your son meerster? If he's under six he still has a good chance to grow up bilingual, one of the greatest gifts you can give him. People who are bilingual learn other languages more easily, are (on average!) more intelligent and for some reason even live longer!

He is six. He is very good at maths and reading, but struggles with conversation/comprehension of spoken instructions, although it has improved.

We have decided that the monolingual approach was a failure and my wife is going to speak Indonesian to our year-old daughter.

Your wife could improve her accent with elocution lessons but her grammar won't improve without English classes, and probably not very much even then. If she's been speaking English that way for a long time she'll have ingrained habits that are very hard to break.

I just spent half-an-hour on the phone to the accent softening teacher. His fees are £25/hour which is not too bad, although it will involve an hour's journey each way to get there. She is having a 2 hour lesson on Friday afternoon. He said that they will practise letter sounds, and would need to bring an exercise book and dictaphone to record and improve her self.

I have no idea how it will go, but I am intrigued by the approach - she would perhaps in the future like to go to work, and she's always ended up in menial jobs in the past due to the fact that her spoken English is too accented for a customer-facing position.

Don't worry about the effect on your son. Growing up in an English speaking country will ensure that his English will turn out just fine. But I still think the best solution is for your wife to speak Thai to him.

She will struggle with that.

I'm quite keen to help my son, I'm upset that he doesn't have many friends because he cannot communicate as well as the other children.

meester

MrsTine wrote: »

Depending on your sons age that will come with time... Most people I speak to would never realise that I'm not british by birth and yet I only moved here when I was about 13/14... before that my english was... questionable.
My gramatical ability is still a little questionable but that is mainly down to having no interest in it and trying to learn 4 different language structures at once... My spelling and writing (when at work and not on forums) is very structured and correct with very few spelling mistakes being picked up by my spellcheck despite it being my second language and being mildly dyslexic.

Encourage your son to watch programs on TV and listen to books on tape to give him less of a regionalised accent. Unless he's interested and over 10 I wouldn't bother with any structured teaching to correct it.

The lessons are for my wife....

My son's accent is extremely 'English', due I think to the other children at school.

conradmum

meester wrote: »

He is six. He is very good at maths and reading, but struggles with conversation/comprehension of spoken instructions, although it has improved.

It might not be due to your wife's language input. My 5 year old's exactly the same. His reading is very good but he struggles with answering questions about what he's read. Could just be a boy thing.

meester wrote: »

We have decided that the monolingual approach was a failure and my wife is going to speak Indonesian to our year-old daughter.

Good idea. This means too that your son could well pick it up. The age when children start to lose the ability to pick up languages instinctively is supposed to be about 8, so theoretically your son isn't too old yet. I was thinking it could be a little upsetting for him for his mum to suddenly start speaking to him in a foreign language if he's 6 or older, though.

meester wrote: »

I just spent half-an-hour on the phone to the accent softening teacher. His fees are £25/hour which is not too bad, although it will involve an hour's journey each way to get there. She is having a 2 hour lesson on Friday afternoon. He said that they will practise letter sounds, and would need to bring an exercise book and dictaphone to record and improve her self.

Sounds like a reasonable rate. I have visions of 'in Hertfordshire, Herefordshire and Hampshire, hurricanes hardly ever happen'.

meester wrote: »

I have no idea how it will go, but I am intrigued by the approach - she would perhaps in the future like to go to work, and she's always ended up in menial jobs in the past due to the fact that her spoken English is too accented for a customer-facing position.

My students hit this problem all the time. Extremely able and well-qualified, but unable to get anything other than factory work. Sometimes their spoken English is actually really good, but accented.

meester wrote: »

She will struggle with that.

Yes, I realised after reading the thread that I'd put the wrong language. Maybe we should just pick a random language for your wife to learn so she can pass it on?:rotfl:

meester wrote: »

I'm quite keen to help my son, I'm upset that he doesn't have many friends because he cannot communicate as well as the other children.

That would be upsetting for any parent. Could there be another cause, such as a developmental delay in that area? It could just be that he's slow with this and he'll catch up. My son struggles with the subtleties of interacting with other children sometimes.

3plus1

meester wrote: »

He is six. He is very good at maths and reading, but struggles with conversation/comprehension of spoken instructions, although it has improved.

To be honest, if he's only six, I wouldn't consider this an issue! Children are still developing at hugely different rates at that age and boys often take a while to catch up with the girls. Have you spoken to his teachers? Are they worried? Is your wife?

meester wrote: »

We have decided that the monolingual approach was a failure and my wife is going to speak Indonesian to our year-old daughter.

It's not too late to start with your son too. I would strongly recommend this. You might find him using words from both languages interchangeably sometimes, but this sort of thing quickly resolves itself. He's still young enough to end up bilingual.

meester wrote: »

I have no idea how it will go, but I am intrigued by the approach - she would perhaps in the future like to go to work, and she's always ended up in menial jobs in the past due to the fact that her spoken English is too accented for a customer-facing position.

I work with two women with heavily accented English. One is a manager. With all due respect, surely it's qualifications (or the lack thereof) that hold people back, rather than their accent? You say she's worked before, so she has experience of being in the workplace and she's presumably helped bring up your kids, which means she must have great multitasking skills. If she's not getting where she wants to be, either she's not selling herself well or she doesn't have the right skills. I would be surprised if she was being judged solely on her voice.

meester wrote: »

I'm quite keen to help my son, I'm upset that he doesn't have many friends because he cannot communicate as well as the other children.

I understand where you're coming from - but it does just take some kids longer to bond than others! My gut reaction is that you're trying to blame his difficulties with his peers on his language skills, but maybe he's just naturally a tiny bit awkward around people? It's something that tends to improve with time.

Agutka

I didn't speak a word of English until I was 11 and then joined a secondary school at a time when they started learning spanish and french. That was fun. All was fine in the end though. My accent became british, but the polish accent suffered - apparently I really overpronounced every word. I was however speaking polish at home and at weekend school. Eventually the english gave in and now some people can tell I'm foreign and some cannot. Then there are those who pretend they can't understand a word :rolleyes:.
As for grammar that can be helped by extensive reading. Then it either looks right or wrong. My dad can write quite well, but you wouldn't understand a word he says;).
My nephew is bilingual (3) and it's adorable how he switches from one language to another depending on who he is speaking to. His english accent is that of his mother at the moment, with all her weird ways of saying things, but that will change when he goes to school (his polish is hers too, using female phrases instead of male, but that will pass). I'm struggling to speak polish to my son, as english is so much easier. Instead I got him a polish childminder and drive him over to the family as often as possible.
Anyway, don't worry about your son, teach them both Indonesian and good luck to your wife in her lessons.

meester

conradmum wrote: »

It might not be due to your wife's language input. My 5 year old's exactly the same. His reading is very good but he struggles with answering questions about what he's read. Could just be a boy thing.

That's my assessment.

That would be upsetting for any parent. Could there be another cause, such as a developmental delay in that area? It could just be that he's slow with this and he'll catch up. My son struggles with the subtleties of interacting with other children sometimes.

He is very gregarious and likes to play with other children, but their level of articulacy is rather higher than his, and so it's difficult for them to interact as peers.

meester

3plus1 wrote: »

I work with two women with heavily accented English. One is a manager. With all due respect, surely it's qualifications (or the lack thereof) that hold people back, rather than their accent? You say she's worked before, so she has experience of being in the workplace and she's presumably helped bring up your kids, which means she must have great multitasking skills. If she's not getting where she wants to be, either she's not selling herself well or she doesn't have the right skills. I would be surprised if she was being judged solely on her voice.

Of course she is judged on her voice. On more than one occasion she's tried to take things back to shops and they've fobbed her off, so I've gone back and tried and they haven't even questioned me. And that's not skin colour - I'm sure if she were a British Asian woman she'd be fine.

I understand where you're coming from - but it does just take some kids longer to bond than others! My gut reaction is that you're trying to blame his difficulties with his peers on his language skills, but maybe he's just naturally a tiny bit awkward around people? It's something that tends to improve with time.

He's not awkward, he just has problems with conversing with and understanding people.

patchwork_cat

Some children who speak a different language at home to the country they live in do not make the same progress at school as their peers - it is well documented. Some children though are enhanced by being bilingual - my nephew is half Japanese and was bilingual as a young child and has acheived 10 a and a* at GCSE.

As for the taking things back to shops I have more success doing that than my husband and we are both white British!! That is I think more about personality.

I assume he has only just started school, did he go to nursery, playgroup, toddler group? My advice would be getting him playing with other children as much as possible and you will see a dramatic change, children learn from other children very quickly.

Kerriebaby

meester wrote: »

He's not awkward, he just has problems with conversing with and understanding people.

I have to be completely honest here, has he been tested for dyslexia? that statement, was myself and my brother at that age, we were both diagnosed with it