Miss Elise
Pronunciation Coach
My Story
During my travels in Asia and the Middle East, I saw the need for accessible language education firsthand. While working in Hanoi, Vietnam, I dedicated one morning a week to teaching at a public school. Unlike my private language school students, these students had minimal resources but made up for it with boundless enthusiasm.
The stark contrast between my private students and those at the public school made me think about all the students worldwide who were trying to learn English on their own, without a teacher. That is when I thought: perhaps offering short pronunciation lessons on YouTube could help.
Not long after, I stumbled upon a mini book by Dr. Ida R. Bellegarde in a used bookstore titled Easy Steps to Correct Speech. This discovery sparked my imagination. The short, succinct lessons in the book were perfect for creating mini-pronunciation lessons. This is when “How to Speak English like an American in Five Minutes or Less a Day” was born, and I eagerly began building a YouTube channel. However, as a language student myself, I appreciate being able to see what I am learning. The YouTube channel felt incomplete without a website where students could access my lesson plans.
I realized this resource could also benefit ESL teachers, like the dedicated women I worked with at the public school in Hanoi, who often have limited resources. So, I decided to include not only five-minute lesson plans linked to my YouTube channel but also expanded one-hour pronunciation lessons. Additionally, I have added several conversation topics and questions to help students practice the sounds they have just learned.
Education
I earned my Bachelor of Arts in 2010 from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and completed my Master of Arts at North Carolina State University in 2019. Over the years, I have had the privilege of teaching English in various countries, including Spain, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, and Canada.
Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Dr. Ida Bellegarde for her marvelous book on pronunciation! Published in 1971 to help her students at the Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College (now part of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff), this book was invaluable in creating this project. I have kept the general outline of her lessons the same, but I have changed the content in order to update the vocabulary and clarify certain definitions.