Hoa had recently immigrated to Canada and joined a new team. Her colleagues were patient and kind when she spoke in meetings, but every time she spoke in English, the same thing happened: "Sorry?" "Can you say that again?"
Each time a colleague asked her to repeat herself, she felt she could do more to help meetings go smoother. She wanted to make it easier for her team to understand her.
Over 12 virtual sessions, Hoa and her speech therapist worked on the specific pronunciation patterns that were creating lack of clarity. The way sound is produced in Vietnamese was very different from how they're produced in English. A Vietnamese influenced accent sounded like multiple sounds were missing. "P" and "G" sounds disappeared from words. "Employee" sounded like "Emoyee". "Gorgeous" sounded like "Rogers".
Every session used vocabulary from Hoa's daily work.
Near the end of her 12 sessions, Hoa noticed she didn't have to repeat herself as much. Then, she got a comment from her boss. "You sound clearer than before. Good work." Her boss hadn't known she was doing speech therapy for her clarity.
Hoa was only able to invest in 12 sessions, but those 12 sessions were enough to help her improve her clarity, and gave her plenty to practice on her own. Her ideas get heard the first time. Meetings ran smoothly without constant requests for her to repeat herself.
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