Webinar • Partners
Webinar: Accent Reduction - Gain Confidence Speaking English at Work
Event language(s)
English
Join us for a brief presentation and workshop on Accent Reduction followed by a live Q&A with Ellen Taft.
Agenda
This free webinar is open to members and non-members of the FACC-PNW. Attendees will have the opportunity to hear a brief presentation by Ellen Taft, ADVS, followed by a short workshop on how to properly pronounce some of English's toughest sounds. Then the floor will open for a live Q&A with Ellen. Please plan to have a small hand mirror available for use during the webinar.
About the Speaker: Ellen Taft ADVS
Ellen Taft teaches public speaking and accent-reduction to foreigners, drawing on her experience as an actress and language teacher (ESL and German). She uses diction exercises for actors to build up muscularity and flexibility in the lips and tongue, and precise physical instruction about how individual sounds are made, as well as working on stress and intonation
Drawing on her experience as an actress and public speaker, she coaches professionals on presentation skills: how to prepare a speech, and warm-up and relaxation techniques (breathing), providing step by step practice techniques, so that non-native speaker of English can deliver their speeches with confidence and clarity.
She has taught at several high-tech and bio-tech companies, including Fred Hutchinson CRC and earned an Advanced Diploma of Voice Studies from the Central School of Speech and Drama, London in 1989. She speaks German, French, minimal Spanish. Having lived in the U.K. for three years and being married to an Englishman for over 40 years, she can coach both British and American English.
With experience teaching different nationalities from every continent (Europeans, the Middle East, East Asians, South Asians, Africans and South American) she has always loved her work and her students. She has taught students of every profession from actors to accountants.
In her other life, Taft has directed and produced plays in German, French and Spanish and is the former Artistic Director of the Philadelphia Shakespeare in the Park. In Seattle Ellen has worked with Le Théâtre Français de Seattle, the Eastside French Theatre Groups Les Seagulls and Rue du Hazard. She is a published author, and sings in French and German choirs.