On completion of this course you will be able to:
The assessment is made up of two sections. In the first section the applicant/employee is required to do two recordings. The first step is to read a script that takes approximately 30 seconds to record. The script uses common English words, but contains a variety of difficult English sounds and sound sequences. The script contains practically all the vowel and consonant sounds of English. This enables our voice analysts to do a quick and efficient analysis of the speaker’s proficiency in English and the effect that their mother tongue has on their English pronunciation. The speaker will be rated on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being unintelligible.
The second step is for the applicant/employee to do a spontaneous recording for 30 seconds describing themselves and their aspirations. This spontaneous connected speech recording will allow our voice analysts to do a quick and efficient analysis of the speaker’s unscripted expressive capability in English. The speaker will be rated on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being unintelligible.
The second part of the assessment comprises of a series of exercises which are designed to test the applicant/employee’s ability to process the English words and sentences that they are hearing and to accurately interpret them either by typing or selecting the correct words and sentences. There are ten exercises plus an additional data capture exercise which simulates a customer giving personal contact information to an agent in a call centre environment. The results are expressed as a percentage of the points achieved, then reduced to a 1 to 10 rating.
The objective of the course is to help anyone who has learnt English as a second or third language to communicate in English with greater clarity, confidence and credibility than they ever have before.
The influence of your mother tongue will never be lost but you will be able to speak English in a way that is clearly understood. The course not only aids with intelligibility and pronunciation but also significantly improves the way that you interpret what you hear in English by building up your audio processing capability.
The course is made up of four main sections – an introduction with a self evaluation questionnaire, then the Vowel Sounds section, covering the 23 English vowel sounds, followed by sections covering all the consonants and syllables, each with voice recordings giving examples in words and sentences, and there are 260 exercises and dialogues to complete in order to reinforce the lessons.
