Mention any fashion accessory and leading brand names come to mind: A Louis Vuitton bag or Gucci watch for instance. However, personal image is much more than the bag you carry or the watch you wear. In fact research shows us that the greatest impression made on others is actually caused by the way you speak.
SpeechSchool.TV (www.speechschool.tv) is the market leader in a new trend for professional people around the world wanting to ‘upgrade’ their spoken English. After offering a number of programs over the years, the online school based at the ecentre at Massey University and in central London as found two main courses are the most popular.
The first is the School’s award winning ‘Master Speaker, English Accent’ program. This teaches students from all around the world, through online video learning, how to acquire a clear and neutral Standard English accent. It is extremely popular with people who come from a language background other than English and for native speakers who want to improve the clarity of their speech.
According to SpeechSchool.TV, the School has also previously offered a dedicated American accent program but this wasn’t popular. “At the end of the day,” the School’s Course Director reports, “people around the world want to learn the clearest and purest form of English as their base. They want to sound like Kate Winslet or James Bond, as their accent will blend to some degree depending on where they are based anyway. Even the many Amercian students doing our courses seemed to by far prefer this Standard English accent.”
The second program offered by the School is the ‘Master Communicator’ course. While the English Accent program deals with ‘how you say it’, this course deals with ‘what you say’ and is based on the instructor’s own experience as a Creative Director in a top ad agency. The training in communication technique, public speaking and persuasive speaking has proven very popular with business people and for professional development programs in organizations.
However, while the only obstacle to getting that beautiful hand bag is the sticker price, an ideal spoken voice can take a little longer. SpeechSchool.TV reports that noticeable results are generally seen within 3 months on the course and the real improvements in confidence and finesse take place while continuing the lessons over a longer term basis. Either way, in this increasingly globalizing world, speech will remain the most critical part of the overall impression anyone creates when they speak the English language.