If you can’t access Ear & Speak’s face-to-face training in Melbourne, the next best thing is our unique online English accent modification course to help you elsewhere in Australia. Classes are all in real time, and one-on-one with a trainer – there are no pre-recorded videos, and no group sessions.
Until the pandemic, we resisted prioritising online training because it can never deliver the quality that we pride ourselves on face-to-face. Nonetheless, during the pandemic we worked hard to develop our open-ended, highly personalised Accent Reduction at Home program.
This page explains how the program works. If you’d also like to know more about why we are the only serious choice for accent training in Australia, please see our main page about accent modification or start on the front page.
Expert, personal one-on-one online accent training
Our 45-minute live online lessons are still tailored, analytical and flexible, but our focus is a bit different from face-to-face training because remote learning is not as fast. Everyone is different, so training lasts as long as you want.
All of your lessons are with either Dr Debbie Loakes or Dr Duncan Markham. One trainer, specialist training materials, and additional web-based resources.
For online accent reduction lessons to yield results, you need to be well motivated, speaking English often, and focused on practising a lot! And you need good guidance. There’s nothing better online.
It is important to understand that online pronunciation lessons can never be as effective as face-to-face. This is fact, not opinion.
Singing lessons, physiotherapy, or psychological counselling cannot be as effective by video. And in the same way, trying to hear and see the detail needed for effective serious accent reduction needs real face-to-face training.
The convenience of a virtual solution can be tempting, but should not be your preference.
How does it work?
We start with a brief video chat to check that your devices and connection are good enough for doing serious, focused online learning. You then do some short recordings for our analysis before your first training session, plus a detailed questionnaire to understand your background and goals.
Unlike other providers, we aren’t just telling you a problem and then moving on to the next issue. We’re always focused on insight, mastery and implementation of new knowledge in your everyday life.
Block 1 (three lessons)
Training gets into some very specific problems you’re having that we know are generally easier to master online. This lays the foundation for adding more challenging elements to training, depending on your progress. Insight is the first step towards improvement and confidence.
Block 2 (three lessons)
As training rapport and practice increase, we are able to focus more on implementation of the new skills in real-life communication situations and using your common work/life vocabulary. (In our face-to-face training we would start doing this earlier, but we need to be realistic about the effectiveness of online learning.)
Block 3 (three lessons)
In the third block we develop your skills further and start on more challenging issues, depending on your progress.
After this block, clients can continue training as desired.
FAQs
Fees for online training
Click here for information about our face-to-face training fees and location in Melbourne.
ONLINE TRAINING (Accent Reduction at Home) |
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Block 1: three 45-min lessons | $468 (=$156 per lesson) |
Block 2: three 45-min lessons (discounted) | $423 (=$141 per lesson) |
Block 3: three 45-min lessons (discounted) | $423 (=$141 per lesson) |
Further training: single lessons | $141 per lesson |
We only work with clients who are committed to making progress, so the minimum cost is three sessions. |
All fees are in Australian Dollars. We accept OSKO instant bank transfer, Visa, Mastercard and American Express. All cards attract a surcharge of 2-3%, depending on the card.
Enquiry form
Online training is for clients who don’t live in Melbourne.
If you live in Melbourne please click here for information about our advanced face-to-face accent reduction training. We can’t emphasise strongly enough how much more can be learnt by attending advanced face-to-face training! We know people often want to prioritise time or convenience, but think about why you want to make changes…