Our catch phrase is on its way.

Dear Fellow Earthlings,

It is very exciting to be a Jingles instructor. Let me tell you about something really “cute” that happened today:

I was giving a phone session to one of my highest level clients. Indeed, I seldom teach beginners or intermediate level clients since there are so many of them and since my staff can take care of that for me…

At any rate, he did just GREAT! Last year he got his U.S. English scores up to around 90.5 – which is higher than the 90.2 of most native speakers of U.S. English. So this year he is turning his attention to England English. I administered a measurement today on his England English – and he managed a one-time best score of 90.3!

Now that is SOMETHING!

As we wrapped up our phone session. I said, “Okay! That takes care of everything until tomorrow.”

To which he replied:

“But I…”

My first impulse was to say, “But you WHAT?” However, my long experience at this job told me that in fact, the client had not said “But I…” – but rather had mispronounced something else he had intended to say. Within perhaps a millisecond I concluded that, relieved of the pressure of the session, this client had actually mispronounced the very simple expression…..:

“Bye-bye.”

So I said “Bye, Mr. So-and-So.” And just hung up…

Yes, another day in the salt mines!

Steve Walker, Earthsaver and Jingles Creator

© 2013 Steve Walker, The Jingles-The Japan Foundation for English Pronunciation, Summit Enterprises.