Why
Your Company Needs an Accent Expert
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The Ethnic Communications program can analyze workplace interactions and aid in selection of key unbiased listeners. In addition, we can examine customer preference issues. |
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We can provide interpretation of individual speech patterns, job communication needs, and supervisors’ awareness levels. |
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Consultation can provide facilitation to assist both employers and employees to make sure everyone involved understands aspects of important multidimensional issues. |
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The
accent expert has the power to draw inferences from the facts that the
layman can’t see. She can simplify all information so both the employer
and the employee can understand the situation better, especially if called
in early, before the situation escalates. |
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As a trusted professional resource, Marlene Schoenberg provides connections to interpreters, ethnic communities, appropriate books, CDs, podcastsmaterials and pertinent articles. |
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Our training provides speech and language modeling to create a positive environment for team work through language give and take. |
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Ethnic Communication Arts provides accent modification training for appropriate candidates to help increase their awareness of their speech clarity and move them forward in their skill levels with increased confidence. |
About
the Accent Expert
Tiptoeing
Around Black English in the Workplace
by
Pat Burson,
St.
Paul Pioneer Press
January
19, 1997
About
two years ago, the clerk began to feel her opportunities for career advancement
were limited because she did not speak Standard English well. “ It was hard
for me to communicate”, a woman, working for a Twin Cities company recalled.
“I didn’t even want to pick up the phone.
Fearful
that others would discover the thing that she struggled to keep secret, she
rarely spoke at work.
She even stopped reading postings for new positions because she dreaded
going through the interview process.
Then
her supervisor approached her with an offer :the company would pay to bring in a
speech and language coach for 12 weeks to work privately with her to improve her
communication skills.
Though tentative, the employee, who asked not to be identified , agreed
to go. “I
wasn’t sure I would be able to achieve any progress”, she recalled , “but
I really wanted to benefit.”
The
woman wanted the
help that she had never received or asked for when she was in school
struggling with
pronunciation and grammar.
“As long as I did my homework and went to classes, they just passed
me” In the work place, that kind of progress vanished.
Enter,
Marlene Schoenberg ,president of Ethnic Communication Arts, a multi cultural
speech consulting firm in St. Paul.
Schoenberg
started her company a decade ago to help foreign born English speakers improve
their communication skills in the work place, but she has expanded it in recent
years to address some of the specific needs of African- Americans who speak
Black English or Ebonics.
To
mark Martin Luther King Day on Monday, she is helping to lead a workshop on
Black English in the Workplace.
Schoenberg
has worked with African-Americans, Caucasians, Latinos, Russians and
Asian-Americans employed in about 20 companies and has written a college text
for improving pronunciation.
The
Black clerk who attended Schoenberg’s training sessions said she hoped talking
about them might help others in the same situation, but she added that it was a
highly sensitive issue.
She and others who speak Black English worry that if they discuss it
openly, co-workers or supervisors might perceive them as uneducated or
unqualified for the jobs they hold.
“It’s
also a touchy subject for employers”, Schoenberg said.
For example, some employers might want to help their Ebonics speaking
employees reach their potential in the work place but feel uncomfortable raising
the issue about the way they talk or suggesting they need help speaking
mainstream English. “Employees are reticent to bring up their weaknesses”,
Schoenberg said.
Management is reluctant to say something that isn’t politically
correct.
The
recurring national debate over Ebonics- a term that combines the word
“ebony” and “phonetics” and was coined in the 1970's to describe some
Black Americans’ speech- began again recently when the school Board in Oakland
California decided to recognize it as a second language spoken by many of the
district’s African- American students.
The
debate stretches beyond the classroom to the work place where some Black
workers run into difficulty communicating and advancing because they
don’t speak standard English.
Monday’s workshop, “What’s Up with Black English in the Work
Place?” will be led by Schoenberg and motivational speaker and talk show host,
Andrea Rhines.
They hope to cover several topics including: the complex linguistic
components of Ebonics and the implications for hiring, retaining,
training and promoting African -Americans who speak non-standard English
at work.
“There
are too many people with too many talents to be tuned out because they don’t
communicate well”, said Schoenberg. “There’s just a lot of
misunderstanding.”
Schoenberg
is a white, transplanted New Yorker, raised in the Bronx.
Rhines is an African- American born in Cambridge, England who has lived
in different parts of Europe and the United States and now resides in
Burnsville. They
have collaborated for the past 5 years, conducting diversity training and other
workshops for local companies and schools such as Lakeland Medical and Dental
Academy. During
those sessions, they said, the usage of Black dialect comes up repeatedly. Some
whites have no problems understanding what Blacks ,who speak Ebonics, are
saying, Schoenberg said.
“But for others, there’s a sense or feeling that Ebonics sounds like
another language. It’s not actually a separate language, but a dialect of
English.”, Schoenberg said.
During
her training sessions with Black clients, Schoenberg serves as a mentor and
speech coach, sharpening such specific skills as articulation, intonation, word
choice and the use of idioms, while constantly affirming who they are as a
people. “Some
Ebonics speakers”, she said, “need the most help pronouncing the endings of
words, using correct phrasing, using less slang and jargon, and pacing phrases
so that the listener will understand them better.”
Schoenberg
schools her clients in what she calls “career speech”, which is designed to
help workers maximize their communication skills to achieve their goals in the
work environment.
“It’s like conducting an orchestra”, she said.
Each voice is beautiful but each voice needs to be tuned up a little
differently.”
Schoenberg
said that the intention of her service is not to erase a person’s accent or
what she calls their “cultural voice”-even though some have made that
request, but to enhance their Standard English skills.
Employers
usually refer employees to her when they hope to move them into more advanced
positions.
“An
employee’s communication skills is usually less of an issue if the worker
holds a manual labor or entry-level job.”, she said.
That is less likely with workers in positions where communication is a
key part of the job, such as a receptionist or data entry clerk, particularly if
that person’s voice is the first one the public will hear”. “It’s not as
much an issue at the entry level positions” ,said Schoenberg, “As employees
begin to move forward, they want to refine their communication skills”.
Workers
who advance on the job have to become more sophisticated in their speech,
in the same way they do in their style of dress.
Rhines said, “It’s about professionalism”.
The clerk who went through Schoenberg’s training sessions said that she now feels more self confident at work.”I’m willing to take on a challenge and feel like I am able to do it!”.
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