In today’s increasingly globalized workplace, effective communication is more important than ever, yet linguistic and cultural barriers often go unnoticed.
In this discussion with Eisha Karol, founder of PronounceMe, we delve into the critical role of intelligible communication and pronunciation for professionals working in a second language.
We talk about the impact working in a second language has on employees and employers.
From the hidden challenges of French pronunciation or for non-native executives and managers, to English sounds for French high-flyers, to the profound impact on confidence, inclusion, and productivity, this conversation sheds light on the often-overlooked aspects of language in the workplace—and offers actionable insights for HR professionals and global teams.
For your convenience, you can listen to the audio recording below, or on Soundcloud or YouTube with English subtitles, and/or read the transcription below.
Hello. My name is Isabelle Cottenet, and I’m a French pronunciation teacher, trainer, and coach based in France. Today I’m with Eisha Karol, founder of PronounceMe in the UK, a leading training service for executives using English as a second language, which was founded at Oxford University Innovation.
In today’s discussion, we’ll be talking about the impact that working in a second language has on employees and employers.
Hello, Eisha.
Eisha Karol
Hello, Isabelle, thank you very much for that introduction. I would just like to point out that Isabelle is using English as a second language, although you would hardly guess because her English is so excellent, so congratulations.
Isabelle and I work in the same field coaching international clients in spoken French and English skills, respectively. We use innovative, creative tools and elements of traditional linguistic and phonetic training to solve the following problem:
A hire can have a good English or French certification, but they may not be intelligible in an international context. This is something that we see quite a lot.
Statistics on how communication breakdowns impact business
Maybe you have a few statistics that show how this impacts business environments?
EK:
Yes, I do have a lot of statistics. For example, 89% of workers engage with at least one global team nowadays. Cultural and linguistic miscommunication in these interactions increases project costs and delays.
According to Forbes, over 40% of workers experience a decline in trust towards leadership and their team when communication is lacking. And this is especially true for remote workers, where over half reported a trust gap due to communication issues.
Also, employees working in a second language are often impacted by intelligibility challenges, which affects their day-to-day confidence and efficiency.
For example, the website Market Inspector tells us that 34% of employees struggle with conveying ideas clearly when presenting to international teams.
So how does that impact business overall?
EK:
Enterprise Apps Today claims that 43% of business leaders in 2023 said that overall productivity had decreased due to poor communication.
Ineffective communication results in a lack of trust, and 24% of workers have left companies due to this lack of trust.
68% of workers accepted that low trust has reduced their daily effort and productivity.
So the impact on business cannot be overstated.
Why HR is not aware of the issues to do with accent and business
Do you think HR is aware of these issues?
EK:
In my experience, HR is often not aware of the problem. And the employees themselves are often initially unaware of the problems that their accent is causing because they have the certification. They’re certified as a competent English or French speaker, you know, and they may have that from IELTS or Cambridge or some other reputable examining board with a C1 or C2 level certification in the target language.
And so the problem is not immediately apparent because on their resume it looks as if they have the skill and the competence. And therefore HR are probably not giving due consideration to this issue.
The situation is thrown into stark relief when the employee is promoted to manage or present to an international team. And that’s often when it becomes apparent, particularly if they have to lead a team and do presentations online where the spoken language skill is so essential.
How the lack of this skill set impacts the company
Would you say that elocution and intelligible communication in a second language is underestimated, and if yes, what are the impacts according to you and from your experience?
EK:
Yes, I do agree with that. I think that there’s a tendency to underestimate the impact that this lack of skill set of clear and intelligible communication in the second language can have—first on the employee, secondly on their skill set overall, and then on the ecosystem of the team and then the partners and the clients.
And ultimately that can impact the company, and their brand, their image, and their reputation.
But companies tend to assume that once an employee reaches a certain level in the company, they will, in inverted commas, “know how to handle all these situations.”
In reality, employees in high-level positions are often too embarrassed to ask for help in this situation when these problems start to arise because it is assumed that they have the competence and that they know what they’re doing.
IC:
That’s true. That’s what I’ve heard from clients who didn’t want to tell their employer that they needed training on spoken French and they’d rather pay themselves for the courses than ask their employers.
I think it’s a pity because poor intelligibility can adversely affect work performance by reducing productivity—you mentioned that before—increasing cognitive load, and this is something that clients often report, and elevating stress levels.
How do we raise the issue in a supportive way?
How do we raise the issue in a positive and supportive way, and which aspects need to be acknowledged?
EK:
Thank you for that question. I think it’s so important that we do raise the issue in a supportive way and in a way that acknowledges the problem so that it’s no longer hiding under the rug, as it were.
So first of all, we need to acknowledge the gap that arises when people have to present in a second language to an international team online, to acknowledge, you know, the scale of the jump that’s required and whether our skill set is actually up to presenting online in a second language.
It’s already challenging enough to make presentations in your mother tongue and if you are an introvert, but imagine having to do it in a second language—that is quite a jump for most people. So companies will save time and also save the employees time and energy by providing them with bespoke training to fill that gap.
And it’s important to stress that this is a language training issue that can be resolved with the right training.
Embarrassment and shame around addressing the issue
EK:
I’m trying to talk about this more to reduce the issues of shame that can arise around accents and pronunciation because there’s often so much embarrassment about addressing this issue, in practice.
The reality is that the problem originates in the education system. There’s a shortfall in the education system, which places such an emphasis on writing and reading skills. Those are considered to define our competencies with language when actually, in real life, we are communicating via speech most of the time.
The psychology behind working in a second language
IC:
And it’s all the more true in the business world, all the more. In our online interactions, it’s important to be clear and intelligible. I was thinking of another thing, adding to what you’ve just said, is that we might need to raise awareness on the psychology of working in a second language in a global working environment.
People actually do not make the same decisions depending on the language they are using. There are studies from all around the world that show a shift from intuitive to rational thinking when people use their second language. And this is interesting.
These studies suggest that using a foreign language makes people more utilitarian. So speaking a foreign language slows you down and requires that you concentrate to understand. And to do that, you need to inhibit your native language because you cannot go back and forth between your native language and your target language.
The emotions linked to the languages we use are different. We acquire our native language from our family, from our friends, from television, and it then becomes infused with all these emotions. And usually, we learn our additional languages at a later stage in life, and the emotional connection we have is very different.
I was also thinking, while it can be an asset in the corporate world to make rational decisions in a lot of situations, the inability to make room for our natural intuitions or to show empathy can be problematic in certain HR-related jobs or tasks.
Imagine during a yearly or quarterly performance review if the manager shows no empathy or comes across too harshly, or if a coworker is going through a rough patch and needs to feel heard and understood by his or her manager. This can also be important when managers need to have difficult conversations on sensitive topics.
So yes, there are psychological and sociolinguistic issues at stake here.
The linguistic impact on global mobility and relocation
EK:
Thank you, you’ve raised so many interesting and important points around emotional intelligence, which is such a key skill in the workplace that is rightly being given more attention. And this can impact employees and workplaces on so many levels. So we need to give consideration to the HR issues, particularly in the case of global mobility and relocation employees have to navigate.
When they are relocated, their spoken language skills will impact not only their business dealings but also their everyday lives, particularly dealing with their children’s education and upbringing. And often, in the global mobility package, a lot of attention is paid to housing and schooling, but not to the language skills that are actually going to enable and facilitate day-to-day living.
In practice, when I talk to my clients about how they’re getting on living in a new country or working in London, they say that they often feel like fish out of water and they don’t understand localized terms.
For example, in England, we have a difference between public and private schooling that has a completely different meaning to that in the US. And if they have grown accustomed to US English because they’ve been watching a lot of American TV, for example, they may have picked up and understood meanings that are actually different in the UK.
So those little details and nuances can be confusing.
Navigating registers in a second language
IC:
Yes, that’s true. And so these nuances, from a lexical point of view, from a cultural point of view, and also knowing how to express things depending on the person they’re speaking to. So they need to navigate between language registers as well.
This can be trickier in a second language when we don’t have the clues. We were talking about how to make the conversation smoother by using these transitions that are widely used in British English.
You were mentioning this earlier, I think, well, before we started recording, actually. This also has to do with the cultural aspects of a language that help people create a connection with their listeners, with their audience, and to come across in the right way.
EK:
Yes, there is so much to be said about that. Obviously, in many European languages, there’s a more formal distinction made between different registers. For example, in French, the difference between “tu” and “vous.” In German, you have high and low German in different registers.
And although it’s not so formalized in English, there are certain phrases and softeners that we use to indicate politeness, which is considered a important quality in England. And so, you know, we use an extraordinary amount of pleases and thank yous and sorries and conditional phrases, such as, “Would you be so kind as to do something?” or “I would appreciate it if you could do something.”
And these kinds of nuanced phrases don’t come naturally to someone using English as a second language. Particularly if you come from certain language backgrounds, such as Spanish or Russian, where you don’t have these kinds of softeners and phrases so much, you can risk sounding a little bit blunt or rude in some contexts when that is not at all the intention, just because you’re not using these nuanced phrases. …And as you say, we don’t have the clues to do that.
The risk of diminished authority in a high-flying executive
So I would like HR personnel professionals who are listening to consider these points and address the impact that this can have on the global workforce. It can create diminished authority in someone who is, in every other sense, a high flyer in their industry. That can lead to self-sabotaging and confidence issues.
And I have heard this from people working in investment management, senior engineering professionals, people in banking—you know, people who appear completely confident and on top of their working environment, but actually underneath are experiencing these issues.
And so that can have a real impact on their confidence, and due to unconscious bias, they may be perceived as less competent due to this lack of confidence and intelligibility.
So we shouldn’t underestimate the knock-on effect it can be having, even on their well-being and their stress levels.
IC:
Yes, this is also what people in France, learning French or perfecting their French as a second language, experience, once they get into the workplace and once they want to climb up the social ladder and take on more management positions. That is true.
The impact on social mobility
So, according to you, what’s really at stake around intelligibility and accent?
EK:
Well, as you say, I think it does place social mobility in jeopardy. And it can reinforce perceptions of somebody that may not accurately reflect their intelligence or their competence. And, you know, then, as we’ve mentioned before, there are issues around localization and maybe not knowing the specific language nuances of a country or a team that you find yourself working in.
Security risks associated with unclear speech
What other cases have you seen where this impacts?
IC:
Well, I’ve seen… there was something interesting that I hadn’t thought of before. I was working with a young man who was working in a gas company—a major gas company—in France. And some industries face a workforce shortage, and they hire people from other countries, and they train them.
And I was pleased to be contacted by this big company, which had chosen to invest in their employees and to provide them with language classes. Okay, this is pretty classic. But they contacted me for elocution courses to help a young man from an African country who spoke French, but had trouble making himself understood clearly.
When I spoke to their HR department, they mentioned that they were doing it for the person, of course, to help this person better integrate with his team. But also, it was a matter of security because, in life-and-death or emergency situations, people who take on the responsibility to coordinate the rescuing teams or the technicians in emergency situations need to be clearly understood and to give clear instructions. So for the company, this was also a major issue—that the people be clearly understood by customers, by the firemen, by everyone that they would need to interact with.
So that was one experience. And the security aspect is, I believe, something that is commonly overlooked. It might be a bit extreme—it’s [still] one aspect.
But if we go back to maybe inclusion…
Because this particular company offered elocution courses to help their employees better integrate with the team. So that’s also one aspect that is important for HR departments: this inclusion, diversity, equity, and inclusion—these aspects that they now have to take into consideration. And linguistic inclusion is, I believe, one of them.
Accent as a hidden DEI issue in the workplace
That’s such an important point, and it’s so easily overlooked. Because when we think about DEI, we often think about the more obvious markers, be they race or gender or ageism. And linguistic markers tend to be overlooked when actually they can be a prominent feature in discrimination that needs to be addressed. You know, we’ve all come across cases where people with accents are discriminated against.
And so I think companies could do a lot to help in terms of bringing in awareness actions such as workshops on what an accent is and the fact that constantly asking foreign colleagues about their accent or pointing out that they have a small accent can make them feel insecure about their linguistic skills, even when they have a mastery of the technical aspects—the language, the vocabulary, the grammar. This is a subtle form of discrimination that can kind of mount up over time.
IC:
Yes, that’s true. And that’s—I have countless testimonials or stories of language accent discrimination in the workplace. And not only in the workplace, but… maybe we’ll come back to that a bit later.
The struggles of non-native French and English speakers in the workplace
What struggles do non-native French and English speakers face in the workplace?
EK:
Oh, I love this question because we can talk about the nitty gritty of languages. So, for example, in a native English-speaking environment, we are very used to listening out for the consonants in the language because that gives contour to the language. And, you know, English has a lot of hard consonants—a lot of consonant clusters that other languages don’t have.
And if we’re listening to, say, French or Spanish speakers, who have a much softer, fluid way of speaking, we often don’t hear these consonants where we’re expecting them to. And in a noisy environment, that can be difficult because I think the native English speaker ear is trained to listen out for those hooks to sort of hang their comprehension onto.
What do you think about that as a French speaker?
IC:
I think that’s true. We have a totally different, completely different, sound system. French is a vowel language. The vowel is at the center of our syllables. And if I may add, French speakers might be exposed more to American English, where the consonants are, in my opinion, more relaxed. So getting used to the more muscular sounds of British English can be challenging.
I can understand that because the pitches are different too.
Regional accents in the UK
EK:
Yes, that’s a really important point. And, of course, as you say, they’re more relaxed. And sometimes people don’t know, you know, which is the “correct” one. The answer is the one that is going to be understood, I think, in whichever context you’re using it in.
I’d also like to raise the issue of regional accents because people always ask me about this. And there are a couple of things to say about this. One is that in the UK, regional accents are gaining wider professional acceptance. And we see that reflected in TV and radio, where, you know, there’s more diversity in terms of regional accents. And people also love to hear British regional accents and find them charming.
Historically, they’ve often been associated with class differences. And, you know, we’re moving more towards a less class-oriented society now, so some of that discrimination is going. But there is still, you know, there’s still a tendency in societies for there to be a sort of cultural preference given to the accent or the dialect that’s associated with economic predominance. So in England, that would be RP or Southern British English. And those ideas die hard because they’re quite subconscious.
You know, if we associate a certain accent or a certain region with social mobility and economic predominance, we may have an unconscious bias in favor of that accent or view it as more desirable in the workplace or more professional.
Regional accents in France
How do you see that relating to France?
IC:
I think the situation is a bit similar in the way that we also have regional accents. We also have a lot of discrimination based on regional accents. It’s getting there; we are getting there. Things have improved, but I can’t say that accent diversity is predominant on French TV.
However, I was talking about this the other day. Things are changing also because television is not the only media anymore that broadcasts the official or the “proper” way of speaking. Today, there are thousands of YouTube channels where anyone—everybody—can have his or her own YouTube channel to talk about a subject that they’re an expert in or something that they deeply care about. And the way these YouTubers speak is very different from the way journalists or TV presenters speak.
And I’ve seen that this has infused society as well because even the people I teach and coach, when I ask them, “Okay, now we’re going to work on your flow, so I will ask you to pick someone that you admire or that you like the way a particular person speaks, and we can work based on that person.” So we choose a video, and I’ve seen that the videos they choose are very different. It’s not only—it used to be politicians. People learning French as a foreign language used to admire the way politicians spoke.
And today, it’s not only politics—I wonder why—but also YouTubers who speak in a not-so-academic way. And this, in my opinion, could lead to more diversity of accents.
What do you think about this?
EK:
Very interesting. Yes, I think that we are being exposed to many more accents on YouTube and other forms of social media. And there’s more self-reflexivity as well about accents. You know, lots of funny videos about accents and clever people that can do lots of different accents convincingly.
So yes, I think anybody who is podcasting or broadcasting for an international audience needs to think about their intelligibility because that’s going to improve their impact and their reach. So yes, the media map is changing dramatically.
Accent bias and racism
IC:
You were asking me about the situation in France, and I forgot to mention that yes, we have these issues with regional accents. And we also have issues with accents that are related to a certain social class. And very often, accentism or accent bias is an excuse for racism. And this is unsaid; this is something that people are not comfortable talking about, but it’s true.
So when someone is prevented from taking on a higher role because he is being told that he does not speak French properly—and this is what some of the people I’ve discussed with have told me—I find this outrageous.
But it’s the reality, and this is something that needs to be addressed.
EK:
Thank you for raising that important point. Yes, there is an intersection of accent discrimination and racial discrimination that needs to be addressed. It’s an awkward issue, but it needs to be brought into the open.
And I have to add that even white men can be affected by this. You know, they also are at risk of losing face and confidence if they’re perceived as being less competent by an international team, and that can undermine their authority. So, you know, that leads me to two other points.
I mean, first of all, if that can happen to a white man—say somebody who enjoys a privileged position in society but can still face this loss of confidence, loss of face, sense of being undermined—imagine how much more impact that scenario is going to have on a person of color, on somebody who’s come from another country and is at risk of facing discrimination already because of their race or their cultural difference.
IC:
And women, if I may add?
Empathy arising from the experience of vulnerability
EK:
Yes, please, thank you. Also on women, of course. You know, because this can impact anybody, I think it can place people in a position of vulnerability which they might not otherwise have experienced. And I’m hoping that that experience could help leaders to develop empathy for their co-workers who come from other countries and language backgrounds. I think the more we understand that in a global world, where we’re experiencing linguistic diversity and using different languages, our status—our social status—isn’t fixed, but it can fluctuate according to how we’re perceived. I’m hoping that this understanding, this realization, will help us to create more empathy for each other.
IC:
Yes, I hope so too.
And another thing that companies may want to think about is that their employees represent them. They represent the company. So how does a company want to be perceived by its clients or by potential hires? And maybe having a policy of language inclusivity can also shed a positive light on them and on their HR policy.
EK:
I love this point, and I think yes, absolutely, the modern global workplace needs to not just have the image of promoting inclusivity, but actually have steps in place that are going to make day-to-day life more comfortable for its employees.
So any company representatives listening who want to make their places of work more equitable and more comfortable for their employees need to bear all these points in mind. And, you know, we’d really encourage you to approach us to look into training for your employees to bring this issue of linguistic diversity into the playing field in a more transparent way.
Language inclusivity policy reflecting positively on company’s image
IC:
What could be some ideas that maybe we could share about small steps, starting steps, that companies could take to send a positive sign to their multilingual workforce, for instance, and to those who do not feel secure all the time?
EK:
I think, you know, it’s a sensitive topic, and it needs to be broached with sensitivity and subtlety. You know, I want to normalize—I’m hoping us having this discussion will help to normalize these kinds of conversations so that we can talk about how linguistic diversity impacts us in our working lives.
The need for downtime when using a second language professionally
For example, it can be tiring to speak in a second language all day. And it might be helpful for employees to have a safe space to speak in their own language with their colleagues who come from the same language background. I certainly found that when I was teaching English in Italy, which was a while ago, that, you know, sometimes I just needed downtime to speak in English and to sort of switch off and recharge before launching back into Italian, which is, you know, an energetic language to be speaking in.
And also, companies need to know who they can hire to help with these issues. And so increasing awareness that this kind of bespoke, tailored training exists, so that we can be on the radar, so that, you know, you will reach out to us knowing that we have done the research and we have the program to help your employees in this situation.
IC:
True, true. So maybe it’s time to talk about the work we do. I’d say our work humanizes the workplace for international employees because we provide them with a safe space where they can ask questions, where they can experiment with the language or practice in a very systematic way, and where we talk about intercultural issues as well.
How language training humanises the workplace
But in a world driven by technology, and with all the frenzy around AI, is one-on-one teaching or coaching still relevant for international professionals?
EK:
Ah, great question. Well, I can answer based on my experience of working with professionals. I find that clients look forward to the lessons much because they’re engaging—far more engaging than working with AI could be—because they get a combination of accountability. And we also have a lot of fun. It’s a pleasant moment, a pleasant experience for the clients. I think that AI has a valuable role to play in spoken language training because it can be a good practice partner, and the technology is set up to do that. But there are many human aspects that it can’t replicate, particularly the psychology and the cultural background.
One-to-one training vs AI-driven platforms
The feedback that you’re going to get from AI will be more mechanical. It will lack deep empathy. It will certainly lack humor. In British culture, humor is very important, and it’s, you know, often quite understated to the extent that it can be, you know, maybe a little bit challenging for the newbie.
It makes a lot of reference to media culture. So these are kind of interwoven aspects that AI struggles to replicate. AI often sounds impossibly neutral, to the point of boring, and often just doesn’t sound human. It can’t draw on references to songs and films, which form, you know, the fabric of culture.
And when I work with clients, we do a lot of work with songs. We do a lot of work with singing. I get them to go and watch films that might illustrate a certain point about British humor or British culture. And this brings the culture alive for them, and it also deeply supports the language acquisition process because they have humanized points of reference to hang their learning onto.
And, you know, the humor aspect, the cultural aspect, makes it much easier for them to remember these points and enjoy them. So this makes the lessons lively; it makes them engaging; it makes them efficient. Because when clients are having fun, the language is happening almost by magic because it doesn’t feel like rote learning.
And it’s personalized to the human that we’re dealing with. And clients really value that personal approach and that personal aspect because it makes them feel valued and seen. And it really takes a person to do that. I think you would agree?
Communication skills vs language skills
IC:
I fully agree, 100%, of course. And if I may add, often we’re not there to teach the language because—I don’t know about you—but most of my clients already have a good command of the French language. Some have been living in France for 10 or 20 years. So when they come to me, they want to work on their pronunciation—to be heard, to be listened to—and also to boost their communication skills in that additional language.
So, for me, that’s a big part of the work I do—on pronunciation. And it saddens me when they come to me for reasons that are linked to discrimination. I’m coming back to that again because I’m hearing it every day when I speak with new clients. And it saddens me when they say that they’ve been told that, with their accent, they’ll never be able to work in the legal field, for instance, because their level of French is not good enough.
But their “pronunciation issues” and their lexical knowledge – the vocabulary, the grammar, and the syntax of a language – are two different things.
Something else that they’ve told me is that as soon as locals hear they have an accent that is different from theirs, people stop listening to them. They stop listening to them—they don’t even make the effort.
So learning how to pronounce things correctly in an additional language helps to be more intelligible, to feel more confident, to take on a new managing role, for instance, or to pitch investors when you’re the founder of a startup, and to feel more legitimate.
So, I’m going to dive a little bit into the type of work I do, which can be similar to what you do, because maybe it will give our listeners a better idea of what pronunciation is about.
We’ve talked about accents, and now let’s talk about pronunciation. You can speak clearly with an accent, but you need to master the rules of pronunciation. Do you agree with that?
The irregularities of the English language
EK:
Yes, absolutely. And when we’re talking about English, it’s full of irregularities. First of all, we have many sounds that don’t even exist in other languages. Thinking about French speakers, they struggle with the “th” sound, which is so common in English that we actually have two variants: the voiced “th” in “this” and the voiceless “th” in “think.”
But for many French speakers, both of these tend to become “z.” You know, “zis” instead of “this.” Sorry about the very bad French accent! You see what I mean—the sound just doesn’t exist. And they’re not used to putting the tip of the tongue between the teeth to create that sound. It’s challenging for them to do that.
And then, the English language is just full of irregularities. There are words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently. There are words that are spelled completely differently but pronounced the same. There are place names that bear no resemblance to the way they’re spelled.
One example is Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. “Bury” is spelled B-U-R-Y, but it’s pronounced like “berry,” like a raspberry or a strawberry. So this sort of thing—and there are millions of examples in English—are just so confusing for speakers of other languages.
Looking at the language written down and trying to work out how to pronounce certain words, has that been your experience?
Differences between written and spoken forms of French
IC:
Yes, there’s also this aspect with the French language where the written form is very different from the spoken form of the language. And depending on whether the people have had any formal training on the language itself, or have learned the language on the spot because they came to the country and just had to manage and communicate.
Once we start explaining how words are written and how they are pronounced, it can be—it’s a breakthrough moment for a lot of them. This brings me back to what I was saying:
you can speak with an accent, and that’s perfectly fine, but you need to know or understand and use the right pronunciation rules in order to avoid any miscommunication.
I think that’s the priority—priority number one is to avoid any miscommunication. And a big part of the work I do—and I think it’s also a big part of the work you do—is to develop listening skills. But not only on what is being said, because in traditional language classes, we do listening exercises: “Okay, you listen to a video for five minutes, what did you understand?” That’s one part of listening skills.
Understanding the musicality of language
The listening skills that I try to train my clients on is to pay attention to how things are said. So, if the voice goes on a higher pitch, if it falls, the breaks we make—the music of the language. And often, this is something that has been totally overlooked. Yet it will help people to better understand their clients when they’re talking in a Zoom meeting, for instance. Also, to pay attention to sounds and to the voice in a different manner.
What do you think about this?
EK:
You’ve raised some important points. And the musicality of language, the prosody, is something that we are tuned into, but we take it for granted. So we don’t listen to it consciously, but it influences how we hear things and how we understand things. It is a skill set that needs to be developed.
I also do a lot of work with clients on rhythm, on placing the stress in the right place. Because in English, we often have multi-syllabic words, and it isn’t clear where the stress goes. And sometimes, if you place the stress on the wrong syllable, it makes the word difficult to understand.
So we do a lot of work on rhythm. We do work on pitch and intonation, which also relates to musicality. These are elements that we need to put together with the actual phonetics: looking at how certain words are pronounced, how certain sounds are formed, and training clients to spot the patterns.
This is both part of the listening skill set and part of the cognitive skill set when they’re reading. When they see a word, and they are able to spot in advance that it’s not going to be pronounced the way it’s written, they know how it sounds.
Gradually, as you say, they start to have these moments of recognition—these light bulb moments—where things start to make sense to them, things start to fall into place. And then they’re able to tackle the specific vocabulary, their business presentations, and develop those pitching skills, as you say—the client presentation skills.
But there are many elements that have to be addressed individually and put together so that they feel confident tackling the language as a whole.
Developing speech muscles for a second language
IC:
Absolutely. There’s another aspect that is often overlooked in traditional language teaching or coaching: developing the speech muscles. And I guess we are both fond of this type of work because we come from a singing background or a musical background.
We know that sometimes you know how things work—you understand how things work—but if you don’t practice your piano, if you don’t do your scales, if you don’t practice speaking certain sounds or combinations of sounds, you will not improve.
You need to train your speech muscles to operate differently when you speak in another language.
Understanding the differences in sounds between languages
EK:
Absolutely. And as you say, we’ve both undergone a certain amount of singing training, and that does make you aware of where the organs of articulation sit in the mouth to produce certain sounds.
English, as you know, has a lot of diphthongs. And we tend to vocalize the vowels a lot, so we need to create space in the mouth. I find this a lot with speakers of certain language backgrounds—they need to open up the back of the mouth a lot to create space to produce those diphthongs and those long vowel sounds that they may not have in their own language.
And also tongue placement. I was talking earlier about native French speakers struggling with the “th” sound that is so common in English. It is about learning to put the tongue between the teeth, the tip of the tongue, and for it to feel comfortable and normal. Because it feels strange for a French speaker to do that, as you just don’t do it in the French language. Acquiring that kind of muscle memory requires a lot of repetition.
Thankfully, now we also have wonderful tools online where we can show the position of the tongue. You can see it moving in the mouth. I use that a lot with clients so that they have a visual reference, and then they can apply it to their own sensation of the mouth movements.
So there are so many dimensions to this work. And then, of course, looking at the sounds of English that don’t exist in the speaker’s native language.
We’ve talked about some sounds that French speakers find challenging, but when the speaker comes from a different language background, the sounds they find challenging are going to be different, according to which phonemes they have in their language.
The programs that I run are actually tailored for speakers from different language backgrounds so that we do specific work on those sounds that they will find difficult because they don’t have those sounds in their own language. A tremendous amount of research goes into creating these programs so that they are tailored and also time-efficient.
I know that both of us have brought a lot from our diverse skill sets into creating these training programs. And this is what also makes our work interesting—working with people from different linguistic backgrounds.
IC:
Yes, and I’ve found that the ability to explain the differences between the sound systems of the learner’s native language and the target language is helpful. Usually, when we speak a second language, we have a natural tendency to choose the closest sound in our native language. But sometimes it’s not close enough.
By showing them what goes on in the mouth, as you were saying—through videos or MRI videos that show what’s happening inside the mouth—this leads to real light bulb moments.
Choosing which aspects of French pronunciation, for instance, to start with will depend on each person, on their native language, on their background, and on their relationship with the language itself.
This plays a major role in how we tailor the programs for each person so that it is as efficient as possible.
A personalised learning process for the individual
EK:
Absolutely. It’s an individualized and personalized process because people are individuals. They have specific relationships with both their own language and the languages they’ve acquired, depending on the way they were raised and educated, where they grew up, the exposure they had, and so many factors.
IC:
And the last thing I’d like to say about the type of work we do and why it yields such good results is that we provide individual feedback. And people act on that feedback. So very often when they come to us, they’ve done training in languages before, but they didn’t have specific feedback on the way they pronounce words or on the way they communicate. Having this tailored feedback and specific tips helps them to move forward.
EK:
Yes, absolutely. I think the feedback is so valuable, and that’s what helps clients and students to learn quickly. When they’re able to incorporate the feedback and practice, what they get in the end is kind of like a business suit —their own personal embodiment of the target language that makes them feel authentic and confident. It gives them that leadership quality in the second language because they feel that their training has been tailored for them and that it fits them perfectly, like a bespoke suit.
IC:
Yes, and once they understand why they speak in that particular way and that it’s okay, and once they understand that there’s an explanation for their pronunciation issues or communication issues in their additional language, then it takes a big weight off their shoulders.
They know that it’s not their fault because often they come and say, “Oh, I don’t have a good ear,” or “I have a bad accent.” So they come with a lot of self-limiting beliefs and negative thoughts.
The way we work, we help them build their confidence back by showing them—like lifting the hood of a car—how it works, how the mechanics of the language work.
Feeling confident in a tailored language ‘business suit’
EK:
Yes, I love that image. And as you say, so much of it is about confidence. It’s gratifying to see the confidence and fluency that clients walk away with. One last thing I’d like to talk about is how this kind of personalized training is different from the kind of off-the-peg solutions that companies traditionally buy from mainstream language training companies.
One thing I’d like to add about that is those companies are often not agile enough to provide the kind of highly customized solution that we’re providing. And the reason that clients struggle with speaking a second language to the business standard is often because they’ve gone through standardized language training throughout their education and career.
Personalised training vs off-the-peg solutions from mainstream companies
So, I think buying more of the same kind of standardized training is not going to solve the problem. It’s something I’d really like to make companies and HR personnel aware of—that to get these kinds of fast results, you do need a specific, customized kind of training program. And that’s what we’re offering.
IC:
Absolutely—personalized, with feedback, and with tips on how to implement the things we do in a session, to implement those tips in their daily lives, in their working lives.
How to get in touch with us
Isabelle’s website: https://www.secureyourpronunciation.com
Email: isabelle AT secureyourpronunciation.com
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isabellecottenet/
What about you?
Eisha’s website: www.pronounceme.co.uk
Email: training AT pronounceme.co.uk
Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eishakarol/
On the website, you’ll find a signup link, and you can book in for a free pronunciation assessment for your team with no obligation. You’ll get some feedback about how they’re doing and maybe what might need working on.
Thank you, Eisha. I think we’ve covered quite a lot of things today. It was a wonderful conversation, as usual.
Yes, it’s been a fascinating and far-reaching discussion, Isabelle. Thank you so much for your expertise.
Thank you, Eisha.
