Meet Your Coach
About Me
Hello!
My name is Elaine Foster-Jones. I graduated from Michigan State University with my Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics. I have been a private dialect and accent coach since January of 2015. I am certified in the Compton PESL Accent Modification Method.
I am passionate about language and linguistics and very excited to work with clients from all over the world.
My Background
I personally became interested in accent coaching after becoming hooked by BBC television and radio. I would constantly imitate several varieties of British accents throughout my childhood, a feat that became somewhat of a party trick.
After graduating high school, someone suggested that I look into linguistics as a major for my undergraduate degree. I became instantly entranced. Along with my courses, I began working in the university’s Speech & Audiology Lab, where my supervising professor eventually sent me an article related to accent modification. I knew then and there that this was the career I wanted.
Two years later, I began working with international teaching assistants at my university to help them reduce their accents so as to be more comprehensible to their American students. This program was called Technology Enhanced Accent Modification (TEAM), and it utilized a combination of computer-based listening and repetition activities, as well as interpersonal reading and conversational activities. In late 2016, I became certified in the Compton PESL Accent Modification Method.
It has been so incredibly rewarding to observe my students as they become more confident in speaking English. They had come to me very frustrated that Americans were struggling to understand them even though they spoke fluently, and they left with an understanding of the differences between the accent with which they speak and the General American accent. I hope that with a career in accent coaching, I can continue to bridge these communication gaps for others, and help the world to become a more communicative environment as a whole.
