What is it about changing your accent that's so strange? Do you feeling like you are changing your identity? When you learned to speak, you followed the teacher - imitate and repeat, right?
Your teacher said, "Say it like this - "APPLE", and you did.
It seems like an easy concept -
....But it's something more.
Let's look at the psychology behind it. You think of yourself as this person who grew up speaking a certain language easily and fluidly..someone who sounds fine speaking that language. If your first language is Spanish, then you are awesome at Spanish! Then you learned English. Ahhhh! What frustration, right? When you learned it, you may not have had a native speaker to teach you correct pronunciation. This is most likely the case. And even if you did, you were too busy just trying to find the right words with the right grammar, and you didn't focus on the way it sounded when you spoke.
Now you have arrived at today - today you want to focus on the speaking part, but you don't know where to start. Even when you listen to native speakers, you think you can't possibly sound like them. Well, guess what? You can't because you're YOU. Your identity that is connected to who you know you are needs to create a "new accent" that's only for you. So, if I'm Maria who is a native speaker of English and who sounds like "this", meaning a certain way, when I speak English, I want to now build a way that I want to sound when I speak ANOTHER language. This happened to me when learning to speak Italian and Spanish.
For me, speaking in Spanish, I feel more comfortable expressing my emotional side because it is spoken so expressively. In high school I didn't think about my pronunciation. But when traveling in Spain in my 20s, I listened and noticed how emotionally expressive everyone sounded. Now, when I am around friends I hear different inflections of emotions and I think, "Oh, I can feel comfortable saying it that way." So I try to say it myself after I hear the way someone said it. And if I can manipulate it to my own style, I keep it. But, I won't go too far. I'm not going to sound like I'm in a telenovela,! That's not my style. Italian is a little bit different for me.
I studied Italian more formally and was a little older when I learned to speak it. The people I was around when I did the "listening phase" to learn how to pronounce, were more mature. In turn, I think of myself as more controlled in my speaking. Maybe that's because my professors in college were more subdued than my high school Spanish teacher!
How did you learn English? Who was your role model? Whatever your situation was, you can start today by getting back into the 'listening phase' to pick the way you want to sound. It won't take away from your identity of who you are. In fact, it will just add to it. When students say they are afraid to speak, I tell them that this is their chance to create any voice they want for themselves in English. Just listen to others, isolate a phrase or two and decide if you can say it that way. If you can, practice it then make up your mind to adopt it. The more you speak in English, more comfortable and relaxed you'll feel and the more you will want to create your own accent - one that fits just you!
http://english4professionals.webs.com
