Welcome to Accentology
Welcome to Accentology! If you’re here you probably feel that your communication skills are holding you back from achieving your full potential, whether you generally lack confidence when presenting or whether you have an accent which you feel is letting you down or leading to misunderstandings. The good news is that effective communication requires basic skills that can be learnt, practised and improved. Whether or not you have an accent, you can learn to be an excellent communicator, allowing you and your ideas to stand out and make an impact. Learning and using these skills will help you inject more LIFE into your communication, open up your world to greater opportunities and boost your confidence so that public speaking becomes something you can actually enjoy!
Photo: Nathalie Cooper (left), Sophie Cooper (right)
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About Us
We are both trilingual speech and language therapists as well as keen singers. With first degrees in Modern Languages and Linguistics from Oxford University, we both later retrained as speech therapists at UCL and City University. Because of our professional, linguistic and musical background, we are often approached by people wanting to improve their vocal projection, speech clarity or accent. Having worked with different professionals such as businessmen, teachers and lawyers who felt insecure about their accent, we’ve come to realise that often, additional work on communication skills is what has had the most impact and provided the greatest boost to their confidence. We’ve had years of experience in the areas of voice, speech and communication, both in the NHS and in the private sector, initially dealing with more traditional speech and language work such as social communication for young people on the autism spectrum, Parkinson’s, general voice problems, stammering etc. We are increasingly using our expertise to help both native and non-native professionals become more confident speakers, working on public speaking skills and/or accent reduction and prosody. Our own multilingual experience, working in England and abroad in large multinational companies with people of all nationalities and backgrounds has given us an invaluable insight into the issues faced by non-native speakers in an English-speaking working environment who struggle with confidence when speaking in corporate settings. Having fun and connecting with our clients is a vital aspect of our sessions, as communication and public speaking in any setting is about vocal vitality, engaging with audiences, and enhancing your best qualities. With our positivity and encouragement, we will give you the tools to transform the way you use your voice and become a more dynamic, engaging and charismatic speaker.
Communication Skills
Have you ever felt astonished by a speaker who could make a dull, dry or tedious topic so captivating that you didn’t notice the time go by? Wouldn’t you like to be that sort of speaker? Someone who can really engage with their audience, captivate and motivate them? All too often, important ideas can be lost on audiences due to dull delivery and ineffective communication, and this will happen even with the most fascinating of topics. Think back to lectures that you dreaded, even on favourite topics! Being able to transmit your passion and to influence others, whether giving a presentation, pitching an idea or aiming for that promotion, requires excellent communication skills: an audience that doesn’t feel connected to you will not be receptive to new ideas. These skills may not come naturally to everyone, but they are skills that can be learnt and applied, transforming you into a strong, engaging and persuasive communicator. Through our Accentology communication skills training, you will learn about the different features of vocal delivery and how to apply these to bring your speech to life and engage listeners. You will also learn how to become more influential with the use of different vocal models and body language, and finally, how to maximise your rapport with your listeners through storytelling.​
Our training will help you with:​
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Presentations
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Public speaking
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Effective use of body language
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Conveying more authority and confidence
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Being a more engaging speaker
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Being more persuasive
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Connecting with your audience
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Coming across as more authentic
Accent coaching
The term Accent Reduction can have a negative connotation, as if foreign or 'non-standard' accents are a thing to be eradicated. Your accent is part of your identity and should never be considered a bad thing! It would be BORING if everyone spoke the same way! Moreover, completely getting rid of a native accent is not realistic, however much you work on your pronunciation. In fact, despite being English, we ourselves are often asked where we are from – this is quite common for people who grow up speaking more than one language, as one language can interfere with the others to some extent. ​ Changing your accent is not easy. This is because of how our ear develops in infancy: before the age of 8 months, babies are able to hear all existing speech sounds. By 10 months, however, they already learn to tune solely into the sounds of their own language, gradually losing the ability to hear and replicate non-native speech sounds. This is why it can be very difficult to identify and repeat unfamiliar sounds in other languages. However, with sufficient motivation and practice, it is possible for highly motivated people to achieve excellent results. However, you do not need to sound like a native English speaker to be a clear communicator. ​ If you have a strong accent that does lead to communication breakdowns, you may find that just a few tweaks to your pronunciation or intonation can be transformative. Because of our multilingual background and knowledge of phonetics, we have always had a knack for picking up on and explaining the sound nuances between languages and have helped people of all nationalities learn to discern and produce sounds they were never aware of before.
Communication skills:
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1-hour sessions - face to face or online.
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Initial video recording to establish baseline and goals.
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A tailored programme over 5, 10 or 15 sessions covering vocal foundations and ways to become a more engaging, persuasive and impactful speaker.
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A programme that will give you the skills and confidence to become an engaging and impactful communicator.
Accent coaching:
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1-hour sessions online or face-to-face
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Initial speech recordings to establish baseline and goals.
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A tailored programme working on auditory discrimination skills, individual speech sounds, connected speech and rhythm.
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We recommend at least 10 sessions
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Individualised written materials and audio recordings after each session.
What we offer
FAQs
Are sessions tailored to the individual?
Definitely! During the initial consultation / taster session we will discuss your issues and goals and identify the areas that would be useful to work on. This session also involves baseline audio or video recordings to compare with outcomes.
How many sessions do you recommend?
For Communication Skills, this will depend on what you’re keen to work on. We would recommend at least six to cover just the vocal foundations as changing the way you communicate requires changing a behaviour, and long-term speaking habits don't change overnight!
For Accent Coaching, we would recommend around 10 sessions to start seeing more lasting effects. However, you must be prepared to put in the TIME and EFFORT!
Accent coaching: Can I get rid of my accent?
Wishing to eradicate your accent in adulthood is a tall order, even for the most talented of linguists! For texts that are learnt by heart or practised a lot, like a speech or script, mastering the individual sounds and connected speech processes will be considerably easier, but in everyday speech this can be difficult to maintain. It is possible, however, to adopt more native-sounding processes for greater clarity, naturalness and flow.
I'm very shy - can I actually improve my public speaking?
Of course you can! We used to be extremely shy at the start of our work life, and it was learning communication skills and how to project an air of confidence when addressing audiences that really helped us to gradually feel more confident. When people perceive you as confident, you start to act in a more confident manner.
Other speech therapy services
LSVT® for Parkinson's disease
We are both registered with the HCPC and have worked in a variety of settings including NHS hospitals and community settings, private clinics, schools and independent practice. We are both LSVT® (Lee Silverman Voice Treatment) certified clinicians and have extensive experience of working with speech and voice issues associated with Parkinson’s Disease such as dysarthria and hypophonia. Sophie also ran the LSVT clinic for 2 years at Sutton Health and Care NHS.
Voice disorders and Transgender voice
We have worked with children and adults with a variety of voice disorders such as nodules, muscle tension dysphonia, vocal cord palsy, psychogenic voice disorders and puberphonia. Nathalie used to run the voice service at Epsom Hospital . Sophie has undergone post-graduate training with consultant voice therapist Christella Antoni and has now been seeing clients for both voice feminisation and voice masculinisation for several years.
Speech and fluency disorders in adults and children
These include speech sound disorders such as lisps, as well as fluency disorders such as stammering and we have undergone training at the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering. We have also worked with monolingual and bilingual children (French/ Russian/ English) with language delay and social communication difficulties. We are quite flexible in our working and currently do a combination of home visits when necessary, but also see people in our home or online.
"Nathalie was very good at identifying sounds and intonation aspects I didn't realise I was doing. This was just what I needed for my work in the theatre and I am so grateful!" Christophe
"Sophie, I honestly can't thank you enough for what you've helped me to achieve." Ludmilla
"I have thoroughly enjoyed my course with you! I have learnt so much and I looked forward to every session!" Emilien
"I feel much more confident in meetings and presentations. It's funny how I notice now a lot more aspects about pronunciation than I used to." Seol-hee
