Can we "simulate" the perfect American Accent?

I find myself pondering whether it is realistic to expect people living in one country and offering phone support to people in another one to acquire the accent of the country where they offer phone support ... without ever visiting or living in the country? Is it even possible on a grand scale?

It's an interesting paradox because in a sense we're creating a win-win - people looking for jobs can find them in another country, and often they are willing to make extreme changes to their speech to qualify for the jobs, and those looking to reduce their labor costs can also find that, but can we "simulate" the perfect American Accent?

Even if someone watches American tv and in every other way immerses him or herself in American culture, will the result eventually be to transition to the target accent? What else is required?

I've known for some time that systematic correction from a speech professional works, but the underlying assumption is "communicative competence" - that is, we assume the person already speaks and understands English well. If we depart from this assumption, and instead add the potential "ambiguity" that the trainees may not completely understand us and even if fluent in English, may not fully understand "American" English in terms of implications, intent, or cultural context, then can we really expect this same type of correction to work? That is, to yield the result of someone living in another country speaking "American" English with an "American" accent?

Of course, you will hear people say, "I'm speaking American English every day on the job," but we all know this doesn't mean any awareness is there or that anyone is giving them feedback and certainly no correction is taking place (it would be kind of inappropriate!) This probably means although English is being spoken, the same mistakes are occurring over and over again (and getting reinforced), which doesn't support change.

Knowing this is one thing ... now, how to do something about it! As Sonja Koppensteiner commented earlier (very insightful), it's important to set expectations. People can learn to do their jobs better (by acquiring an accent in this case) without changing who they are as human beings. It's just part of the job! How to set those expectations?

Here are few thoughts:

make sure all the stakeholders realize the commitment level and are willing to do what it takes -it's not going to be easy or happen over night

make sure participants define focused ways to "practice" understanding that it's all about awareness, not doing mindless exercises or "homework" to get it over with

insure participants take an "active" rather than a "passive" role in the training - let them drive the topics and pace as much as possible

build in "checkpoints" along the way with all stakeholders - is it working?

to some extent, be flexible as a provider to let participants "learn the hard way" - that is, try things that are intuitive to them, but not likely to work, and then ask the hard questions in the next session to prevent wasted effort: "how did that work out for you?" - like memorizing the dictionary!

learn from the process ... as with all things :-) ,

It's moving along this week - in the analysis phase with 2 client companies in India, and it's been an interesting experience so far. Details to follow in subsequent blogging endeavors!