Professional Business Communications

Angelika brings tremendous energy and insight to her work with foreign-born entrepreneurs coming to Silicon Valley. She is extraordinarily well connected and seemingly omnipresent at key Valley events. This knowledge and network make her an outstanding resource for companies expanding their business to the U.S. June 14, 2009

Angelika is fantastic. At the World Affairs Council of Northern California we invited her to come talk to about 100 young professionals on Americans forms of business communication. She is incredibly well-prepared and people-oriented. Using a well-organized and rich powerpoint slideshow, Angelika gave an hour long presentation (including Q&A) on the nuances and differences of how Americans communicate in the workplace as opposed to in other places around the world. Angelika is very comfortable talking in front of people and thrives off of audience interaction. From the question and answer period, she was very welcoming of opposing viewpoints and open to learn new things from the audience members. Following her talk, Angelika offered to stay for a reception where she was willing to answer numerous questions and offer career advice to young professionals who might be struggling to find a job, are having difficulty in the workplace, or are newly settled to the United States. From the 20+ people that I talked to afterwards, everybody had great things to say about Angelika and mentioned that they learned a whole lot and never realized how subtle some of the regional and international workplace cultures really are. In sum, Angelika made a fabulous presentation which was incredibly well-received. She knows more about this subject than I ever thought was possible.
Angelika’s Linkedin Page: http://www.linkedin.com/in/angelikablendstrup

I hired Angelika for career coaching in 2008 while I was a first year MBA student at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She managed to design an outstanding and tailored service that allowed me to neutralize my French accent and, above all, to master the codes of job interviews in the U.S. Her customized approach was innovative and made me achieve incredible results in the following weeks. It was efficient and replicable easily in any situation. Today, I master my interviews with the "fiercest" companies (in management consulting or in high tech). I gained a significant competitive advantage thanks to Angelika. To conclude, I will highlight her main strength (a strength that I was not able to find at Stanford): she does know and understand diversity and cultures to such a high level that she can leverage it to transform your difference into a weapon. Thank you Angelika. Top qualities: Great Results, Expert, High Integrity

I thoroughly enjoyed the sessions with Angelika. She planned each session so she could also coach me on my job search strategy and interview skills. The outcome was really valuable to me and it gave me a framework in which I can continue working. I appreciated Angelika’s direct approach which makes the sessions more interactive and allowed me to get more out of them.

Top qualities: Personable, Expert, Good Value

I took 12 sessions from Dr. Blendstrup for Accent Reduction and Presentation Improvement. Dr. Blendstrup pointed out and corrected every single mistake and also my bad habits in my pronunciation. I had to be very focused on our conversation during the class otherwise she captured every mispronunciation. Do you know what we called our class? TORTURE, a little scary, huh?

However, after I felt the improvement and sensed being more confident in my oral communication, I really (!) enjoyed the sessions.

In my experience, Dr. Blendstrup's class is suitable for the following student:
1. Someone who is serious and really wants to improve his communication skills
2. Someone who is not afraid of challenge
3. someone who has time to devote to the class and practice after the class is over.

Dr. Blendstrup's class is NOT suitable for the following student:
1. Someone who expects the class will remove all his accent after the session
2. Someone who doesn't have time to practice

I also learned a lot from Dr. Blendstrup which was very helpful to understand American and European history and their background culture; this is very helpful to integrate myself in the local society and community.

Dr. Angelika Blendstrup gave an interactive workshop to our 1st year international students. By attending this workshop the students received insights and learned techniques that showed them how to communicate the American way. She has a unique style which enables her to give practical, easy to understand advice, resulting in our students having a much better appreciation for the American business culture. Given her long experience teaching intercultural business communication she enhanced the students’ understanding of the typical communication pitfalls foreigners face in the US, enabling them to better interact with potential employers and fit smoothly in the American environment.

The sessions with Angelika were always pleasant and impressive. She knows exactly what I need and possesses extrodinary skills to find my small mistakes during our sessions. She has helped me improve quickly while being a very patient teacher. After six sessions, I have strong confidence in my ability to speak proper English, especially when communicating with high level business executives.

Having been in the United States for so many years, I still found myself being misunderstood by others. I went to see Dr. Blendstrup for accent reduction. Dr. Blendstrup is a very responsible and strict teacher, she caught every error I made right away, and recorded all of them; she video taped the whole sessions so I could digest them better afterwards. Each session with her was very productive. What I gained from the meetings with her was not just my accent improvement. I also enhanced my grammar and the use of words to better convey myself. Most importantly I am more comfortable and confident speaking in English. Thank you, Dr. Blendstrup. I’m looking for a future opportunity to work with you again.

Angelika is a great teacher who is so patient and persistent in getting my pronunciation right. I learned a lot from her - not only great American accents, but also great communication skills that are so useful in my day-to-day work. As she truly understands the difficulties of different ethnic groups, she used a variety of methods to help me improve my accent effectively. I highly recommend her to everyone who wants to improve his/her accent. I just wish that I could have the luxury of keeping her as my accent teacher forever.

Angelika helped me improving my business communication skills including speaking, writing, and presenting. She customized the sessions to meet my specific business needs. I’ve made great improvements after a few sessions with Angelika. And what I value most are the tools that she gave me so I can continue to improve my communication skills. I highly recommend Angelika to professionals who are interested in improving their business communication skills.

Our support staff truly enjoyed Angelika’s workshop. Working in an environment where all team members were non-natives, we understood we had to address not only issues related to accents, but also underlying cultural differences. Upon contacting Angelika, she agreed to meet with us to review our concerns and put together a half day workshop agenda. During the workshop, each team member had a one-on-one session with Angelika, where she laid the groundwork for improving individual verbal communication skills. Subsequently Angelika reviewed general communication principals and expectations as they apply to the US (yes they are very different to Europe, Asia etc.). By working through real support scenarios, we were able to implement the principals and see how applying simple steps resulted in a greatly improved customer support experience.

Angelika exceeded my expectations in every dimension. She tailored her instructions to my specific needs. My intent was to learn accent reduction only, but she taught me several aspects of business communication including business etiquette. Each tutoring session was fun and effective. She helped me to be more confident. She is very straight forward, trustworthy, and knowledgeable. I made significant improvements, notably by not repeating myself when public speaking. I strongly recommend her to anyone looking to reduce accent and improve presentation skills. Thank you very much, Angelika!

Angelika amazed me by her ability to correct me each time I mispronounced a word, not only when I was presenting, but even when we were talking to each other. I liked her technique of teaching you both the correct sound and the right mouth/tongue position to produce the sound. Angelika is a perfectionist, and pleasant to work with and I strongly recommend her to anyone looking to improve their spoken English and/or their presentation skills.

Angelika exceeded my expectations in every dimension. What I like most about Angelika is her exceptional ability to tailor her instructions to my specific needs. In the course of our sessions, she came up with some creative tricks to help me with certain difficult sounds. I still use those tricks every day. In addition, she also taught me how to listen, which set me up for continuous improvements - this is the mark of a great teacher.

Taking accent reduction sessions from Angelika who can natively speak several languages, you get different perspective of language. She not only lets you know what is wrong with your pronunciation, but why. Of course, it is a long way from knowing what's wrong to actually being right - naturally, Angelika is there to encourage and help you all the way. BTW, I have been thinking if someday Angelika's dog, who is always faithfully sitting in every session with us quietly, starts talking in perfect English or German, I won't be too surprised.

Angelika helped me enormously in accent reduction and presentation skill. As a foreign born immigrant, I felt especially challenging in phone conversion and presentations. Thanks to Angelika, her sessions not only helped me to reduce accent and learn presentation skill. But most important, that gives me confidence talking to people. Now I feel more comfortable talking to people through phone and make presentations. During my sessions with Angelika, my manager had a short vacation. After he came back and listened to my presentation in the group meeting, he immediately felt the progress I have made and felt very satisfied with AngelikaÕs teaching. Again, I would like to thank Angelika for the excellent sessions she offered.

Thank you so much for your help, Angelika! I really enjoyed every minute with you and learned a lot.. I hope our paths cross again...maybe next year. Best Regards to you!

"Living in the Bay area, accent never was a problem for me except for the occasional hindrance with certain words and sounds. However, working with Angelika on accent reduction and presentation was a real eye-opener. Her experience showed through the fact that she quickly and accurately pinpointed my weaknesses and then she diligently worked on remedying those. She is friendly and supportive yet firm when necessary in her instruction - the marks of a great teacher. People around me started noticing the improvements in my communication immediately and the training gave me confidence and composure for several successful presentations. What I value most is the perspective that I gained from observing communication among people around me and noticing how little nuances can hinder communication and success and how easy it is to overcome these niggling traits with the right guidance from a coach like Angelika. I would highly recommend her to any foreign born individual in any walk of life who wants to ease the path of assimilation into society and success in business in America."

Communication sessions were very helpful to me for improving my speaking ability. I could see the difference before and after the session. This is the real truth. I become conscious when words which Angelika taught me to pronounce come up and then I realize that I know how to say them correctly now.

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I've been lucky to know Angelika and receive her expert instruction in learning Spanish for more than 20 years. She was my instructor at Stanford and has helped me many times since then. She is smart, dynamic, and skilled at teaching foreign languages." Ð Steve Westly, State Controller and Democratic candidate for governor

I benefitted enormously from your approach to speaking well, for it took into account the cultural and professional context in which the communication help was most needed. This attention to the context (and related vocabulary) was perhaps the most distinguishing characteristic of your coaching, and a reason for its effectiveness.

I enjoyed and highly recommend Angelika's accent-reduction workshop. She is knowledgeable, attentive, and easy to work with. She was very effective in helping me identify the particular speech patterns, pronunciation errors, and usage habits that rendered my communication difficult to understand. But more importantly, her direct coaching style helped make me aware of these speech barriers and pitfalls, and enabled me to recognize and avoid them in my continuing effort to improve my personal and professional communication. I have already noticed the positive effects of Angelika's workshop during the phone conversations and presentations I partake in at work. In fact, in between our six weekly sessions, I was able to apply Angelika's suggestions and advice to a job interview, and successful secured a job offer that almost doubled my salary. I have Angelika to thank for that.

Angelika pointed out most of my accent differences in the first session. Because of that, it set up a direction for me to improve easily throughout the entire program. She kept the right pressure for me in every session and I benefited a lot from her teaching methods. I highly recommend her to anyone who wants to improve their accents and achieve better communication skills. Thanks for all the help!

The tutoring session was one of the best experiences I had since the beginning of my journey into the VC world. Honestly, the anxiety and tight schedule had made my presentation more and more mechanical until I met you. You brought my passion back and led me to the path of success! Thank you very much! July 21, 2006

Coming from Asia, I find that I mispronounce certain English words causing problems for me when speaking to Americans, especially in business settings. Angelika was very quick to pin point these words and I feel much more confident in my conversations now. I have also found that the video taping of my presentations helped me become aware of distracting gestures I would make and Angelika's suggestions have helped me make those presentations much more polished and professional. My sessions with Angelika was well worth every penny I spent.

I loved her coaching style. She did not only train me to speak clearly, but also guided me to present better in professional and private situations. The first day I met Angelika, I did not even know to shake hands in an appropriate way, but now I do!! She helped me to be more confident. She is very straight forward, trustworthy, observant, knowledgeable, and smart lady! I recommend everyone to work with her. Thank you very much, Angelika!

I am very glad that I took classes from you and I found it very useful! First of all I realized my mistakes, which I think was the most important step to improve my accent. Secondly, you made me realize that self confidence is very important in communication. And lastly, I understand that I should speak slowly and clearly in order to make an effective speech. Those are the main things I learned from you. I know it will take time to correct some sounds I have been saying incorrectly. But I will be working on them constantly. I also enjoyed a lot working with you! You catch mistakes very well! I like the freedom you give your students regarding what they are going to talk. That is really great.

I really enjoyed working with Angelika. She is direct, observant, knowledgeable and fun to work with. She identified many areas of improvement in my communication, which partly related to the cultural background and partly related to my personality. Her suggestions are relevant and useful, which will benefit me forever.

Since I took your class, I am much more careful and try to double check the usage of my English, also when I work on emails and reports; I spend much longer making sure that everything is correctly said. In your sessions, I learned to create proper, long sentences in the right word order - a hard thing for me to do previously because my language is not close to English at all. I feel that these 6 sessions have been a good base for my continued improvement.

Thanks Angelika, for having worked with me on my accent, my English presentation and communication skills. I had a very hard time at the beginning for people to understand me. But now, after our lessons, I don't get an ymore questions, I am understood whenever I speak. I gave a great presentation the other day and everyone was happy with what I had done, so your help is much appreciated.

I noticed fast the improvement in my speaking English after working with you for several sessions. I now feel comfortable talking to people not only in person, but also over the phone. I also gave a presentation last week, and everyone who came really liked the way I spoke and very importantly, they all understood me.Thanks very much for your help.

Feedback for your Presentation/Accent Reduction Course: I attended 6 sessions in your course and I must say that thecourse was an eye-opening event for my communication skills. Your coaching helped to improve my interaction with the clients a lot. Being from an Indian education background, my communication skills had required improvements to communicate with US clients. Your Course has helped me to improve the following parts of my communication skills:

• To speak in a clear manner with a reasonable pause between words which helps clients to understand me easily
• Pronounce each word with all the defined syllables.
• Improve the flow of information for presentations.

I would highly recommend this class to all Indian IT professionals. Dec. 7, 2004

I found the six weeks of training very helpful in identifying areas where I needed to pay more attention with my communication and pronounciation of words. The audio and video sessions helped me to get valuable visual feedback about my communication. We normally don't get much feedback from native American with whom we communicate on a daily basis about Indian pronounciation of words that they find hard to understand, so thanks for pointing that out (the difference between the 'v' and the 'w', the 't' and the 'th' etc). Thanks.

Working with Angelika was really fun! Being able to talk about anything - not only business related - was really important to me. As she speaks Portuguese, she pointed out the common errors I was making and helped me fix them. Now, I feel more confident both at work and in everyday life. October 4, 2004

I noticed the effects of the coaching immediately, the filming and recording made me aware of my problem areas after I watched and listented to my own presentations.Then, by listening to your tapes in the car, I practiced my problem words and made great improvements fast. I now talk more slowly and clearly and people pay more attention to what I say and not how I say it. I am less stressed and more relaxed and I also can find better words and sentences when I speak. You were very flexible but also very organized when working with me and I now watch out for every single item when I talk to people on the phone or during presentations. I recommend your coaching to other professionals and I also recommend that they use real work materials (as I did) since they will improve right away. September 2003

Communication skills are very important to my job at DreamWorks/PDI. I am a lead lighter, which means I have to often communicate with my team. After the classes with Angelika, I gained a lot of confidence in speaking before groups, and my better communication skills have helped speed up my production. Since then, the company has given me more opportunities to take on bigger projects. I have been able to share my knowledge with my co-workers, I take on more responsibility and have gained more trust in my work from the company. October 10, 2001

I got (major) responsibilities, only 1 1/2months after my arrival" (and 1 month into your training) and I was able to drive a big team really quickly and to have clear communications with my customers. After your training, we quickly achieved our team concepts and our customer satisfaction measurements. We got two awards, one for the team, one personal one. The continuous focus on pronunciation was really good and helpful and I liked the open discussions on American customs. August 2001

I noticed a change after 2 weeks of training. I'm more effective in my work and now I can easily express my ideas in a meeting and they don't have to say "please could you repeat" and I see in their faces that they understand what I say. When I explain a solution, people focus on the technical problem, not on the language. I valued the time I gained by not repeating what I said to others and the improvement in the quality of the documents I produced. What I valued the most, was your reading documents that I wrote and your correcting my style Ð explaining the difference between American and European cultures."

We have better and more communication amongst employees, less time spent trying to understand each other. And, we also have more effective meetings, in fact, a 10 minute gain per one hour per meeting.

I went to see Dr. Blendstrup because I wanted to learn more about daily business practices in the US. We worked on my management styles, recognizing different ways of managing people or a team, changing my vocabulary reflecting a German approach to one suited for the US business climate. She also helped me organize and formulate my thoughts for a business presentation, which was grammatically correct and had sound ideas. Best of all, I enjoyed our sessions and I recommend her for other individuals looking to brush up their business communication skills.

Working with Angelika was a real pleasure. She helped me to get a lot more confidence with my everyday English at work as well as in the outside world. She helped me to improve my pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and general knowledge of American expressions. She always brings interesting exercises that make the class fun.

Angelika helped me to improve various aspects of my business English. We worked on my pronunciation, simple changes that made great improvements. We clarified and simplified some of my business documents and improved my presentations. We also improved my vocabulary including understanding local business expressions. It was very effective and it was fun!

I have known Angelika Blendstrup for over six months. During this time, she assisted me with four personal and professional writing projects. I gained a lot from her experience and insight by learning how to effectively structure and present essays. She also proved to be an excellent and inspiring guide. I would strongly recommend her for individual and group instruction, and for teaching classes relating to presentation, business writing and general English language skills. February 8, 2000