Shawn Jung

I came to Canada from Korea. After six years in Canada, I had no problem communicating in English and felt confident with my pronunciation. One day, a friend mentioned that I had an accent. I was shocked — I couldn’t accept the fact that I had an accent. So, I asked my friend to point out the difference between my accent and a native speaker’s so that I could adjust my accent. Unfortunately, he was unable to describe exactly how it was different. Other friends who were native speakers of English gave me the same reply. So I became motivated to find a professional teacher who could point out what was wrong with my pronunciation, and show me how to adjust it.

When I first met Heather, she recorded my speech and analyzed it. I was surprised when it turned out that I had many more problem than I had expected. During the training, she professionally analyzed these issues, showed me how to correct them and gave me a variety of exercises. She emphasized clarity of speech and showed me how to present effectively. After studying for three months with Heather, I saw noticeable improvements. Even close friends and family noticed the changes. I now speak much more clearly and have developed more confidence in my speech.

If I pick the best moment during the training, it would be the last session when I read a passage and compared it to the original recording. Actually hearing what I had achieved was the most fascinating experience!

I highly recommend anyone who wants to improve the clarity of their speech to take a course with Heather. And this includes people like me, who have learned their English from everyday interactions with other native speakers and don’t realize how we imitate the poor pronunciation of others around us, many of whom speak in a very sloppy and unprofessional manner most of time. Even a few classes can be a huge help because simply acknowledging the problem and addressing some issues puts us in much better position than others by allowing us to develop awareness and begin to adjust the clarity of our speech