Example of English voice coaching for business Progress Review - Edward Olive 06.10.2015

Example of Progress Review - Edward Olive 06.10.2015
   

In sessions we have covered various important areas of oral communication for business focused on:

1.  Speech

Principally pronunciation difficulties and improving speaking in general as regards pronunciation, phonetics, natural fluid English speech, rhythms, flow, stress, emphasis, subtext, and intonation. Also linked reading ability;

1. a. The basics of speech

The student has been shown, where possible within a language which is not always made up of pronunciation "rules", where to use each Received Pronunciation (RP) phonetic sound (and General American regional dialect differences) and how to make each sound.

It is my opinion that the student more or less now knows this part. We have gone through all the sounds, recorded them etc. for the student to listen to on the student's headphones on the metro etc..

This is not something the student naturally finds easy. We all find different things easier or harder. We are born that way, but we can always improve a lot it just takes more work to improve. I have to be careful to keep him positive and motivated because we can do it. It's not impossible, it's just hard work, especially at first.

1. b. Getting it "right"

The next stage is to make sure that the student always remembers to get things right and to make the considerable physical effort required to do it.

We have not achieved this yet.

There is not yet a state of "correct" speech. Many sounds are still hard to do, the student does not always remember to do them and they still sound forced. It is still very difficult physically and mentally for the student to keep on the "right" line. This will require further very physical coaching of the muscles and training of the memory. This will be a lot of work for me and for the student.

1. c. Making it sound natural

Further improvement would be that once "correct" it all starts to flow and sound natural. It still sounds like an English class/ speech therapy. It sounds like it's a lot of effort to make each sound still, which it is. It does not sound relaxed or natural yet. The aim is that with further work it starts to sound gradually a bit nicer each week that we have a session.

1. d. Becoming a great speaker

The ultimate goal, of course, is that the student can relax and be happy knowing that everyone can be blown away with stunning, elegant, natural sounding, controlled intonation and beautiful speech to project ideas and company goals in:

Business presentations;
Public speaking;
English language meeting contributions;
Client marketing in English skills;
...


2. Business skills

Speech training has also been combined with, to a lesser extent so far, business skills needed for the student's job such as presenting, meetings and use of English on the telephone. This if course also includes the same things as in 1.

We will continue to use business skills to practise speech... and speech to help business skills. It all ties in.

Recommendations

I recommend having, from now on, an average of 1 session per week. I know this is difficult to achieve for the student, but it will help greatly. In August and September 2015 we had an average of 1 session per month.

Summary

I need to fix a problem that has existed for 20-30+ years, that nobody else has been able to fix. I can do it but it needs a lot of work. It's still all uphill, but once we get over the biggest issues and the very basic things, it all starts to get easier, more fun and more productive for the student and the company's business.

We still have a lot of hard work to do.

Edward Olive
06.10.2015

Business Skills Training - Public Speaking - Voice Coaching
English Solicitor - Specialist Legal English for Lawyers
Edward Olive  605610767 edwardolive@hotmail.com www.voicecoach.es

Edward Olive native British English voice coach, drama teacher and business & legal English teacher with school in Madrid Spain.
Websites as Actor & Voice Over Talent in Madrid Spain
www.englishactor.es
www.britishactor.es

www.englishvoiceover.es

www.britishvoiceover.es

edwardolive@hotmail.com
(0034) 605610767

 

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