Helping multi-cultural professionals improve their English pronounciation

How many times have you thought to yourself: “Wow, that person seems really smart…too bad I only understand about half of what they’re saying.”
Sound familiar?
There are 12 million adults aged 25 and over from other countries, living and working in the United States, who hold a bachelor’s degrees or higher.*
These people are often brilliant, qualified workers. Yet, they find themselves unable to advance their careers, wondering why they didn’t get that job or promotion. Maybe it’s prejudice. Maybe someone else was more qualified.
Or maybe it’s because the interviewer couldn’t understand all of what they were saying.
These professionals usually possess advanced proficiency when it comes to reading comprehension and listening skills. Yet, their speaking and writing skills fall short. Often, no one will tell them this, for fear of offending them. After all, who wants to tell someone, “We can only understand about every fourth word you say?” Or, “While you are brilliant in your discipline, the report you submitted was full of grammatical errors.”
It’s for this niche of adult professionals that there is a legion of specialty ESL/ESOL certified tutors. Many of us hold international accreditation, including myself. A long-time corporate communications professional, I’ve spent decades at Fortune 500 companies, seen the evolving state of the U.S. workforce first-hand, worked side-by-side with people from all over the world. Now, I’m helping adult professionals for whom English is a second (or third or fourth) language with 1:1 and small group classes, tailored to client needs.
Better communication skills build community, trust, and respect. I have worked with a significant number of brilliant, talented, fun-loving and good-hearted people from India, France and other countries who didn’t realize their English pronunciation was in need of improvement in order to be fully "heard." I often repeated what I thought I heard them say to get clarity; it was frustrating and sometimes embarrassing, but they seemed to appreciate that I really wanted to understand every word they were saying.
That’s when it dawned on me that there was probably a significant population out there who could benefit from improving their English pronunciation and writing skills. These people are top-notch professionals in their fields: aerospace engineers, IT professionals, finance experts, coders, technologists, etc. They’re smart. They read and comprehend at a higher level than many, but there’s a delta when it comes to English pronunciation and writing.
I aim to narrow that gap. It’s a calling. The quality of life for the student - and those of everyone they come in contact with - will improve significantly with better verbal expression and better command of the pen.
Toni Busuttil works primarily with adult professionals who seek to improve their English pronunciation and writing skills.
She holds an international accreditation to tutor those for whom English is a Second Language (ESL) as well as English Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL).
Sessions available by appointment. Email: tonijb@gmail.com