[New]For accent reduction and public speaking, three ears are better than one

Introducing associate accent and speech coaches Nathalie and Sophie Cooper

Two new sets of ears: Nathalie (left) and Sophie Cooper are highly experienced speech therapists and speaking coaches

If you been following me recently you might notice some new faces around anthonyshuster.co.uk

After 12 years of going it alone as a freelance accent reduction tutor and public speaking coach, I've now got… colleagues!

Sophie and Nathalie Cooper are both highly experienced speech and accent coaches, and, as you may have spotted, twin sisters.

We three have a lot in common, but in many ways, they are far more qualified than me to do this work!

Sophie and Nathalie are trilingual - in English, French and Russian. So they know exactly what it's like to move through the world using different languages, and making different sounds depending on who they're speaking to.

Now, I'm a standard British monoglot with a French A-level, so I can't draw on this breadth of experience personally. But I consider myself tri-accented: I've written before on this blog about how my original Canadian accent morphed and adapted to West Midlands English, to a form of Received Pronunciation, and now fluctuates between the latter two (depending on whether I'm back home in Warwickshire or down here in East Sussex).

So I'm thrilled to work with two speech and accent professionals who have a deep personal understanding of what it feels like to have not just two but three sets of sounds and physicalities when it comes to pronunciation.

As they put it on their website:

We are increasingly using our expertise to help both native and non-native professionals become more confident speakers, working on public speaking skills and/or accent reduction and prosody. Our own multilingual experience, working in England and abroad in large multinational companies with people of all nationalities and backgrounds has given us an invaluable insight into the issues faced by non-native speakers in an English-speaking working environment who struggle with confidence when speaking in corporate settings.

They also take a very similar approach to me, in terms of how they work with people who seek them out looking to 'get rid of' or 'lose' their foreign accents:

Having worked with different professionals such as businessmen, teachers and lawyers who felt insecure about their accent, we’ve come to realise that often, additional work on communication skills is what has had the most impact and provided the greatest boost to their confidence.

They too see this as more than just elocution or achieving 'correct' pronunciation. Speaking effectively is also about how you handle pace, tone, gestures, and all the aspects of speaking that go beyond the precise shape of the vowels and consonants.

And that's just the start.

Then there's their educational and professional credentials.

Like me, they both studied at University of Oxford (they read Modern Languages and Linguistics, I read English).

But unlike me, Nathalie and Sophie are BOTH clinically trained speech therapists, with degrees from UCL and City University in London.

They've worked for years in the NHS and in the private sector, with the kind of issues that require clinical expertise: speech disorders like lisps and stammers, and many that I haven't even heard of!

As they list on their own website, 'nodules, muscle tension dysphonia, vocal cord palsy, psychogenic voice disorders and puberphonia' (the last one, I have now learned is when men's voices don't drop after puberty).

They also have the relevant expertise to work on social communication for people with autism, LSVT for Parkinson's, voice feminisation or masculinisation for trans people, and crucially, speech development problems with children.

 Speech therapy for children and teenagers

I get a lot of enquiries from parents looking for someone to work with their child or teenager on stammering, cluttering, hesitancy, and general lack of vocal confidence.

I do sometimes work with children in their mid- to late-teens. But I don't feel qualified to work with younger children, as often the speech issues they experience are related to child development or psychology - and I'd be out of my depth.

So I'm thrilled to be able to recommend Sophie and Nathalie to people looking for help with these kinds of speech and voice issues, that lay outside of my professional experience.

And if that weren't enough… they also happen to be incredibly lovely charismatic women who I know people looking for accent reduction or communication skills training will find it a pleasure to work with.

How will this work for people who are expecting to work with Anthony Shuster?

If you found your way here looking for me, and you want to work with me, don't worry - I'm not going anywhere!

I'm not delegating all the work to Sophie and Nathalie, while I sip cocktails on a beach. I'll still be busy working with clients on accent reduction and communication skills.

I just don't have enough hours in the day. The demand for this sort of work is high, and my client list has been almost full or full for most of this year.

And more importantly, as I've outlined above, I simply don't have the skillset to deal with some of the issues that people enquire about. So rather than turn people away, I can refer them straight to Nathalie or Sophie.

Another point worth mentioning is that Nathalie and Sophie are not cardboard cutouts of me - they will not be trotting out anything called the 'Shuster' Method to any paying punter.

Their years of experience mean they know exactly what they're doing, and they have their own methods, that differ from mine in some respects.

But although they have different specialisms when it comes to specific speech issues, and some different ways of achieving the same goals as me in my practice, whichever of the three of us you end up working with, you will get the same level of support - the same approach, the same philosophy regarding speech and accent - and the same fees.

In fact, you will probably get a better level from them - they’ve got the formal qualifications that I haven't!

But essentially, what you're getting, and paying for, when you work with an accent reduction or public speaking coach, is their ear.

After 13 years and more of accent and pronunciation work, helping professional people improve their speaking skills and their confidence, I can hear what you need, and show you how to make the necessary changes to your speech habits.

And now, you have two more sets of finely tuned ears to draw on, to help you sound the way you want to sound!

So welcome to Sophie and Nathalie! and if you have a preference for who you'd like to work with, simply let me know when you contact me to book a free 1hr online taster session.

Thanks for reading :)