Our English accent training is focused on progress and successful performance, not just knowledge. That’s why we call it “advanced”. Your lessons are truly tailored to you (no matter your current level).
- One-hour face-to-face accent reduction lessons in Melbourne’s CBD
- Analysis, guidance and feedback in every session
- Adapted to your goals and progress, every step of the way
- Printed, web and audio material to build knowledge and skill
- New materials whenever appropriate
And, uniquely, we can also guide you in English conversation skills, vocabulary development, culturally appropriate language, and more at the same time (if you want).
If you are outside Melbourne: see our online Accent Reduction at Home program.
Your accent. Your goals.
It doesn’t matter whether your accent is subtle (but annoying you) or massively difficult for others to understand. We know you have your own unique experience of learning and speaking English.
We want to help you speak clearly and confidently in the local context. (We follow your goals: you might want to learn an Australian accent or just improve clarity.)
You aren’t locked into fixed courses and preset programs, and you don’t pay for timewasting “diagnostic” tests, because we’re analysing your speech in real-time from the moment we meet and in every appointment.
We don’t waste your time. We don’t treat you like a child. We give you solutions to fix accent problems, and we make you practise them in real-life communication.
Are you ready to work hard so you never need to repeat yourself again?Expert analysis
We know how languages are structured, and what happens when two (or more) languages come together.
We know how language learning works, in children and adults, in classrooms and in real life.
Dr Duncan Markham wrote his PhD thesis on accent learning and has been training multilingual speakers of English in Australia for two decades.
Dr Debbie Loakes is an active researcher in current Australian English pronunciation and accent.
- We know why a speaker of English with a Vietnamese accent will sometimes pronounce B in three different ways.
- We anticipate that clients with a Malaysian Chinese accent will find the vowel in words like day and cake unusually difficult.
- We help Russian-accented speakers understand the importance of твёрдые согласные in their English accent.
- We know that Portuguese speakers will have different problems depending on origin: English R will be often be harder for cariocas than paulistanos.
- We know Hindi speakers need to be shown that थ is not like English TH (except in the Indian English accent).
Advanced guidance
Anyone can call themselves an accent coach (or similar terms), but almost none have the specific expertise and training to provide accent training that actually changes your performance!
You will find that most providers are either speech therapists, former English teachers or theatre/voice coaches who just had a business idea (see our comment about that here), or linguistics undergraduates on tutoring platforms or Gumtree.
They are probably well-intentioned, but none (not even speech therapists) have detailed training in the core areas of language structure and learning that make accent training significantly better than textbook knowledge. At Ear & Speak, we’ve helped many clients who have wasted significant time and money on services like that. Thankfully they weren’t disappointed when they finally found us.
Serious training. Now.There are many causes of English pronunciation problems. We have the skill to give you solutions, and endeavour to teach you how to change your accent in whichever manner best suits your learning style and challenges.
When we tailor your accent training, we’re not copy-pasting from Wikipedia or pulling out a page called “Chinese accent problems”.
We focus on solving problems and making crucial changes. We don’t waste your time on pronunciation basics that you’re already getting right.
And unlike any other provider in Australia, our expertise means we can help you with conversation, grammar, vocabulary and cultural skills at the same time.
- We know if 拼音 will be helpful for Mandarin speakers trying to fix their English pronunciation, depending on where they grew up.
- We know tricks to help speakers with a Spanish accent better interpret English spelling.
- We can explain problems in physical, muscular, linguistic, phonetic and everyday terms.
- We’ve developed special materials to enhance sound differences that people find hard to hear or pronounce.
- We use our own linguistically up-to-date and culturally relevant materials, developed and updated based on our clients’ needs.
- Our clients have exclusive access to special online resources that we have developed.