Professional Business Communications

In spite of the many foreign accents in the US, it is important to be understood well. Your colleagues will appreciate understanding you easily and being able to concentrate on the real issues and not guessing at what you might have said.

It is unlikely and really unnecessary that you lose your accent totally. Unless you are very musical and spend hours each day working on changing and adapting sounds in your speech, you will be able to improve greatly, but not sound completely like a native. And you don't need to in this envrionment.

In our one-on-one coaching, we take the most frequently used vocabulary that you use in your job (or in other important areas) and go through it to make sure that all words are correctly pronounced and that the emphasis is on the right syllable. In addition, we video tape and burn DVDs of your sessions, so that you can watch your progress and see what sounds you still need to work on. We keep track of what you say during the session and then record your “homework” vocabulary on a recording device for you to work with every day. The same procedures are used for group sessions. Phone coaching follows the same guidelines, but without the video taping unless we use webcams.

This depends on your accent and your overall English competency. In general 8 — 10 sessions will take care of many accent issues that make it harder for you to be understood or to express yourself well. However, you need to realize that in most cases we are working on changing speech habits and not on learning basic English. Most of our clients are on an executive level and their overall English skills are very good (vocabulary and grammar). If you have not spoken English as long or still often work in your native language, training might take up to 12 sessions, but that is rare. Group sessions generally take 10 — 12 sessions so that everyone can receive the individual attention he/she needs. It is important to take the lessons consecutively, once a week, so that you remain aware of how you speak and work on improving your sounds. However, if you need to travel, it won't hurt if you go for a short while after an intial 4 week coaching.

Yes, if you make consistent grammatical errors, we will give you structured exercises to correct them. We also work on your writing styles. Clients bring their writings with them — emails, white papers, PPT presentations — and we go through them identifying the incorrect language patterns. Once it is clear what has to be improved, we develop independent exercises for you to practice and do as homework. We also alert you to any cultural faux pas you may be making in the tone and structure of your writings. In addition, we offer coaching sessions on hitting just the right tone in your written messages, so that you don't appear to be too abrupt or even impolite.

Unless grammar or writing is involved, it is an adaptive curriculum. Each accent reduction session is geared to you personally so that general handouts may not fit your needs. We listen to you, and teach you skills and techniques that will lead you to your own personal success. We do have handouts with language information, helpful tips and ideas and they are used to supplement our training. These give you reading and practice materials for work outside of our sessions and can be used to keep up your newly acquired level of expertise.

First, you will consciously hear that you are saying words differently or incorrectly. Then — and that is an important step — you will be able to correct yourself — even after you have said the sounds incorrectly, again. Next, you will be able to anticipate that the word (which previously had been a problem) you are going to use is coming up and you will say it correctly. Last, you will have adopted the correct way to speak and that will become part of your normal speech pattern.

85% of the executives we coach move on to higher responsibilities or are promoted to the next level because of their having worked with us. You will become confident that how you speak is correct and people around you listen to what you say and not how you say it. In all of the years we have coached clients how to reduce their accents, no one has failed to reach the level of expertise they wanted to if they actively worked at it.

The good news is that once you have completed a course, you will know how to correct any mistakes you make by yourself. In order to keep up your improvements, it is important that you have developed a discipline of speaking consciously and also of listening to yourself — whether on the phone or speaking to someone in person. If you do this regularly, you will not go backwards and get back into the — often lazy — speech habits you had before the training. The best way to keep up your new speech is to have another brush up session, two months after the training, ie.taking a refresher class. Then, do the same thing 2-3 months after that and so on until you have developed the habit of speaking with the new sounds and they come naturally to you.

Usually they take one hour. The sessions are so full of information and your active participation that an hour is enough time for you to progress very well. However, if you want, or you come from far away, you can also have longer sessions. Two or three day individual, intensive training sessions are also available. In fact, these intensive sessions bring quick, new insights and lasting changes. It is important to take the lessons consecutively, once a week, so that you remain aware of how you speak and work on improving your sounds. However, if you need to travel, it won't hurt if you go for a short while without a lesson after an initial 4 week coaching.

We can make a phone assessment of your accent needs and develop an active program for you to follow with a one time phone check up of your progress. Costs depend on the length and intensity of the program.

The costs depend on if you take a package, if you just want a few sessions, or if travel is involved. However, in order to have excellent and lasting effects, it is highly advisable to take a minimum of 8 — 10 sessions. The good news is that many companies now realize how important it is for their employees to speak good, crisp, understandable English and they are willing to pay for it. The testimonials on my web site that list corporations are from clients who have been sponsored by their companies.

We are located in Palo Alto, California, in the heart of the Silicon Valley. However, we will travel to your office for individual executive or group coaching.