Welcome to Accentology...
Do you have a high level of English but still feel people don't always understand you? Do people always ask you to repeat yourself? Do you feel your accent is HOLDING YOU BACK from achieving your professional goals? Does your accent or voice cause you to shy away from public speaking? If so, Accentology Accent, Speech and Voice is the right place for you!
Photo: Nathalie Cooper (left), Sophie Cooper (right)
About Us
Having grown up in a multilingual English, French and Russian environment in London and Moscow, we developed an acute awareness of the sounds and prosody of language and made an early start with our PASSION for helping people improve their accents in other languages! After both graduating from Oxford University in modern languages and phonetics, we worked in Russia in various roles including English teaching and journalism before undertaking Masters degrees in
speech and language therapy.
One question we kept being asked when people heard we were speech therapists
was 'Can you fix my accent in English?' So we decided that our unique experience of
a multilingual upbringing, speech therapy, teaching and singing would be ideally suited to a job which we have essentially been doing all our life! We love what we do, and we always take on new clients with ENTHUSIASM and POSITIVITY!
Accent coaching
The term Accent Reduction can be perceived by some as having a negative connotation, as if foreign or 'non-standard' accents are a thing to be eradicated. Everyone has some form of accent, and within one country you will find a multitude of different accents. Accents need not be a problem UNLESS they frequently lead to
communication breakdowns.
If you are a professional in a client-facing role and English is not your first language, you may feel frustrated if your accent prevents you from communicating effectively. You may feel that you are not being taken seriously, which will in turn affect your CONFIDENCE, PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT and CAREER GROWTH.
If this is a situation you identify with, let us HELP you! Just a few tweaks to your pronunciation and/or intonation
can transform the way you communicate, empowering you in the boardroom to deliver meaningful messages
with IMPACT and CONFIDENCE!
What we offer
1-hour online sessions (these can be arranged face to face if this is preferable).
An initial assessment involving speech recordings to help us establish tailored goals covering all aspects of speech production, i.e. individual speech sounds, connected speech and prosody.
A tailored programme working on auditory discrimination skills, individual speech sounds, connected speech and prosody (word and sentence stress, intonation, flow).
Individualised written materials and audio recordings after each session and recommendations for home practice.
Work on presentation skills for clients seeking to improve their public speaking, helping you to become a more engaging, persuasive and confident communicator with improved intonation, pacing and vocal projection and use of non-verbal communication.
A programme that WORKS and that will give you the skills and CONFIDENCE to plan ahead and self-monitor so that you no longer require guidance from either of us!
FAQs
How many sessions do you recommend?
It's up to you how many sessions you have, but we would recommend around 10 sessions to start seeing more lasting effects. However, you must be prepared to put in the TIME and EFFORT, as long-term speaking habits don't change overnight! Some people may just want advice and help with a particular speech or presentation they have to give, and would require just 1 or 2 sessions. Others may want to carry on for longer, working more in depth on all aspects of speech sounds and intonation.
Can I get rid of my accent?
Wishing to eradicate your accent completely in adulthood is a tall order, even for the most talented of linguists! It is possible, however, to adopt more native-sounding processes in connected speech, pronunciation and prosody to transform your speech and give it greater clarity, naturalness and flow.
I don't have a good ear - can this work for me?
This is why these sessions are ESSENTIAL for you! We help develop your auditory discrimination skills, opening up your ears to nuances and subtleties you may never have even been conscious of! Many clients have been AMAZED that they can now discriminate between sounds they were previously oblivious to: the ear CAN be trained, allowing you to improve your self-monitoring skills and readjust your pronunciation.
Is it possible to have group sessions?
We normally recommend one-to-one sessions to get the most out of an individually tailored programme. However, this is not always affordable for everyone and some people may be happy to share their session time with one or several colleagues or friends. We are very happy to work with small groups at a discounted price for each client.
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 currently runs the voice service at Epsom Hospital two days a week. 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
