Index_AccentReduction

Helene R. Spierman is a teacher and clinician of many years experience working with students privately and

in group classes. She holds a BA in Speech/Drama from the City College of NY and a certificate in the

Compton P-ESL method from the Institute of Language and Phonology.

A native English speaker, she is also fluent in Spanish, German and French, with singing knowledge of Russian, Italian, Latin, Hebrew, Yiddish, Japanese, Chinese (Mandarin), Ladino, Dutch and Armenian as well. A classically trained singer, she has performed (as Helene Williams) on four continents, and has also acted in films and commercials and recorded new music on several labels.

(Search in "Classical Music" on Amazon.com)

Helene has been an adjunct at Baruch College, doing one-on-one tutoring for non-native English speakers in the student population through the Tools for Clear Speech program. She was the sole Instructor of Accent Reduction at Queensborough Community College in Bayside, NY from 2001 to 2011, designing and teaching the accent reduction curriculum for the Office of Continuing Education. In 2002, she and three of her Queensborough students were interviewed by a reporter from the Voice Of America, and the program was broadcast all over the world. She worked with first-year resident doctors at the Bronx-Lebanon Hospital Center from 2005 to 2009, until those classes fell victim to NY State budget cuts; and has given private and group classes to students as diverse as teachers from India and Episcopal priests with Spanish and Creole/French backgrounds.

Co-founder of The Bronx Opera Company, in 1998 she founded RegoSpeech, changing her business name to Accent Reduction In English Speech (A-R-I-E-Speech) when she moved to Valley Stream, New York in August, 1999.