Areh yar, listen to me.

Britbat

> It's on now, and of course it's understandable. They speak perfect grammatical English. They will speak perfect grammatical English if they get a job at a callcentre. They will speak perfectly grammatical English that will sail over the stupid
heads of a good percentage of their semiliterate customers. They will not know how to modify their accents to accommodate these
dunderheads because they, most of them, do not know how to.

> Maybe you didn't read my OP. I don't want a job, I want to contribute to the culture by starting a small business. That
business would entail instructing already well-educated Indians working in, say, callcentres, how to converse in English without pretending not to be Indian. The mistake businesses here have made is in their policy of pretense. It doesn't work.

> You're talking about Indians in India in Indian jobs. In international jobs (callcentres) it is not a small number of people who have diffculty understanding them. It is a majority. Read the trade press.

The only Indians who should try to modify their elocution
should do so if they want to progress in their jobs.

The industry is becoming aware of the consequences of their policy of pretense.

Where did I mistake you to be an Indian?

karuna

You apparently mistook M for an Indian here, I believe:

Last time I checked running a business was a job. You want a job teaching "correct" English pronunciation. People here say you're unlikely to succeed in either finding one or making one for yourself.

With respect, I'm not sure what you really wanted from this thread. You asked
And then proceeded to argue with pretty much everyone who answered. You may be absolutely right and sitting on a goldmine of an idea. As machadinha says- go try it and find out.

crvlvr

I am up to date on my reading.. But are you? Are you aware that leading call centers have their own "accent neutralizing" training prongrams? ewly hired employees are put through training and have to pass tests before being allowed to handle customer calls. http://bpo.tcp.in/2006_02_01_archive.html

BTW, initially it appeared like you were targeting India's affluent, not call center employees. My previous posts were in response to that assertion

safari vala

most Australians couldn't speak grammatically correctly with correct vowel sounds even if they had a gun pointed at their heads so don't pick on the desi log.

Britbat

> How is that mistaking him for an Indian? I am in the U.K. He is in India. Are you not seeing my parenthesis? I was addressing a fellow I know to be a moderator, whose toecurlingly trying too hard to be clever moniker is a dead giveaway. He may be Polish for all I know. Or care.

> I don't want a "job" teaching "correct" English pronunciation. I want to set up a means, a small business, sensibly, that will let me offer a service. I'm not a philanthropist or a do-gooder.
I saw a way to change the image of callcentre operatives in Western eyes. I think you may be confusing "job" with "work".
I don't want a nine to five job, I'm retired. I would be happy
to work for myself, and a small business is a sensible way to
take care of the bureaucrats. Did you imagine I was this saintly old boy eager to work for free out of the goodness of my heart?

> Indeed, I did ask. I expected reasonable discussion and advice. Instead I got knee jerk emotional responses from people who should know better, and who should certainly have re-read my OP before they gave way to near hysteria.

> Pretty much everyone who answered (half a dozen people?) hadn't
taken the trouble to read my OP for comprehension. Certainly, I had grounds to argue. I'm not that sure understanding has dawned yet. For instance - why do you mention a gold mine? You appear to have misread my post. For instance - why should I go and try it? You appear to have misread my post. I'm not interested in making money out of the idea, the stuff is coming out of my ears. I'm not interested in trying it, I have no knowledge of the Indian system. Hence my search for advice, which, sadly, has proved to be a waste of time.

Aishah

You could try your idea, Britbat. But first check out which kind of Visa you will be having if you are starting a business - all very tricky that one. My thoughts are much the same as what others have already posted - one thing is, there is an Indian English which is perfectly understood by all others speaking it and these people would not want to change - I understand it perfectly. To our ear it has Indian accents, spoken without pauses etc. but it is the common language of communication between Indians, and foreigners ,and to suddenly change your accent into one with 'London English' might give rise to ridicule from peers. It is the English learned in English Medium schools taught by Indians and to my mind, this is the English that many educated Indians use here and it is perfectly all right. So what you are offering is to change a voice of the majority of educated Indian English speakers - I am inclined to think that they will be too busy for your classes. I posted once before about Jennifer from Chennai on NDTV News who has the most perfect English speaking voice - but this is a rarity and my guess is she lived, or was brought up, in England prior to working here! Besides who are we to say which English is the best English? Indian English is here and understandable. My NZ English is more often misunderstood than if I pronounce in Indian English. It might be better, instead of setting up a business, to offer your services first to companies or educational institutes and see how you go.

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PeakXV

I would think that the most difficult part of organizing it all would to ascertain the demographic of the Indian population that would actually benefit from such oratory changes. Possibly Call Centers that concentrate on the UK market, Tour Guides, Touts, & Hawkers might be interested in something like this ........... but a Doon School graduate might well be able to give you a lesson or two.

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Don't go to India ~ Pre-trip Warnings & Misconceptions?

Britbat

> I'm having difficulty getting through here, aren't I? I am aware that callcentre practices include training programs designed (n.b.) to unIndianize (my coinage) accents. The point is that it isn't going to change (and hasn't) when trainers are
perpetuating the cycle of Indian idiosyncratic English. I am
not critical of the accent per se, it's just another accent,
but I am saying that there are small changes that will make big differences. I gather from Nick's response that there might be in India a general assumption that callcentres so staffed are
successfully convincing Western customers that they are native
to the country in question. They aren't. I'll give you a small example of what I mean by quoting an Indian in this thread. I hope Shashank will forgive my presumption. He writes, ". . . however its not possible to cater to people in corporate sector or those who are looking to enter corporate sector without . . .". He has written the sentence exactly as he would speak it. Observe that he leaves out the definite article before both uses of the phrase "corporate sector". Now, you and I, familiar with the manner of speech have no trouble understanding it, and certainly I am not concerned by the tiny idiosyncratic lapse in grammar. You and I know that the well-educated Indian speaks English at a fair rate of knots. However, a significant number of customers over here (insert Western country of choice) are thick as two short planks with perhaps six brain cells total between them and when they hear such a sentence the unfamiliar cadence (from dropping the definite articles and from other similar quick fire short cuts escalating), knocks them on their arse. They may be stupid, but they aren't stupid enough to mistake a "foreign" voice. That, in a nutshell is the problem as I see it. Be "foreign", be Indian, but don't assume you're talking to your equal.

> Oh.

Dear me. "'Best' English" has absolutely nothing to do with it. Oh well, I tried.

Nick-H

I understand that you are trying to help, but I am now confused as to who you are trying to help.

Whether successful or not, call centres have their own system of teams, monitoring, checking and training. Some of them will have British or American employees already. Some BPO units will even have foreign management. These can be huge companies: they will look at their financial results. They might listen to a stranger who walks in one day and says, "I can show you how to do better". Perhaps that is slightly more likely in the younger, more entrepreneurial India than in the staid UK, I don't know.

Then there's the professional classes. I can't tell that I'm not speaking to a born Englishman when I visit my doctor --- but then, he spends several months a year in UK, not only working for the NHS, but teaching medicine. The same goes for my very much younger bank manager, who does not practice medicine in the uk .

Many academics and intellectuals probably speak my language at least as well as I do.

You may well be able to help improve the lot of some lower-middle-class people who would love to get on the ladder of lucrative English speaking work. Many of them, of course will have a dream of emigration, and you may have to spend some time dealing with greener-grass illusions. You may also find children of these, and better-off families, being sent to you to improve their English or to learn a more natural English than they are taught in early school lessons.

I'm sure that, if you put it about that you are available and don't like to spend your time doing nothing, that opportunities will arise.

I was asked by an accountant if I would do this for his children. I declined. I don't have the first idea how to teach the language I simply grew up speaking. You have TEFL experience, so you do have that first idea. I am not an outgoing person (offline ) to be able to just converse easily with people I don't know.

You asked for ideas, and I have tried to move in the direction of what you might be able to do, rather than dwell on what you are unlikely to succeed at.

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capt_mahajan

Britbat,

I don't know how many Indians living in India would pay for this. Or (since money is not the objective, as per your posts) even attend for free.

Broadly speaking, Indians change their idiom and accents because of

-job requirements, eg call centres.
-cultural and professional requirements when living abroad, to make it easier to be understood. (though I know so many who are schizophrenic here, talking with an Indian accent amongst Indians and a 'foreign' accent and idiom 'outside' - in a country where they may have lived decades)
-pretentions of upward mobility and westernisation, though with India coming into its own economically, that is decreasing.

My suggestion, specially since you say

is just try it out. You have nothing to lose.

I am not too hopeful there will be many takers, though.

shashank.aggarwal

I am not sure what you are trying to achieve, did you read my initial two posts ?

If you want to run a business it cannot be on a small scale, you have to make considerable investment by Indian standards, to maintain the standards that corporates (call center, IT companies or any other company) would demand.

If you feel that you need to approach the normal Indian to help him correct the mistakes, that you think are the mistakes, then forget about it. As mentioned earlier they will only pay you or spend the time with you to get themselves corrected if its a professional requirement. And for that also there are numerous entities doing that, and believe me that they have invested a large sum of money to get the ball rolling.

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Nick-H

There are probably more schemes slated, too. Quite likely many that have been given the nod and are now on the anvil.

capt_mahajan

Actually, if you want to do something good, you could teach English to those who do not speak it at all

brishti

britbat - going through the posts, i too had the very same idea as capt saab above. get to them who have not ever learnt/studied/spoken english before. it'd be a service - business-wise though... a no-no.

to be honest IMO, Indians who do know how to speak/think/read in english do not have the requirement to do anything about their accent... and if they do - they figure it out or have it figured out for them in their place of work [as mentioned in the posts above].

get them street kids together. have a blast with them. give them an education as well. thats a win-win situation... except for the economics.

:brishti

navinkurian2002

You would do just fine at secmol
http://www.secmol.org/volunteering/ and yeah stay as long as you like

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