Breaking the Accent Barrier

Breaking the Accent Barrier¹ is a useful video to build awareness about differences in stress, intonation, and muscle use, all of which help you improve the intelligibility of your spoken English. This video can be used both as an introduction to, or as further practice for, ICC pronunciation classes.

• Introduction
• Lesson 1: The Jump Up & Step Down Intonation Pattern
• Lesson 2: Making "Jump Up Step Down" Feel Real
• Lesson 3: Knowing Where to Jump Up In Pitch
• Lesson 4: Opening Your Mouth And Relaxing It In Front
• Lesson 5: The Starting Tongue Position
• Lesson 6: Creating Sound With Downward Tongue Movement
• Lesson 7: Creating Mid-Tongue Muscularity
• Lesson 8: Speaking With Mid-Tongue Muscularity
• Lesson 9: Using Your New Accent In The Real World

¹Breaking the Accent Barrier. David Alan Stern. DVD. Video Language Products, 1991. [digitized with permission]