Learning any new skill takes patience and practice. It can be frustrating. Keep in mind these steps to acquiring a skill. It shows that you are making progress, even when you feel like you aren’t. Keep in mind; you MUST go through these steps to reach mastery of a skill.
1. Unconsciously incompetent
2. Consciously incompetent
3. Consciously competent
4. Unconsciously competent
In terms of accent training, these steps translate into:
1. You don’t know what you are saying incorrectly. You can’t understand what makes it difficult for others to understand you.
2. You know what you are doing to cause your accent, but you can’t say the sounds.
3. It takes a lot of work to think about what you are doing to speak without your accent. You can say new sounds in words, in sentences, and while reading. You can even use your new accent while having a conversation if you are very focused. During conversation, you make a lot of mistakes but correct them.
4. You have a new accent and don’t have to think about using it. Every once in a while, you make a mistake, and quickly fix it.