Speak with FLOW English

YES!!! Please stop worrying so much about your accent when you speak in English and focus instead on building your CONFIDENCE, your CLARITY and your IMPACT.

Your accent is a sign of how clever, determined and brave you are - learn to love it! 💕💕💕

What does this image have to do with speaking great English - can you guess?!

It’s all about looking carefully.

I use a solution-focused coaching framework to help my clients improve their English speaking skills for work and business.

One important aspect of the solution-focused framework is looking carefully to see what you already do well. This might seem very simple, but it can have a very powerful impact.

I usually ask my clients to start with finding 50 things they do well.

So grab a pen and have a go at this simple exercise:
1. List 10 professional skills that you know you possess
2. List 10 good things that your colleagues would say about you
3. List 10 qualities that make you a good friend/relative
4. List 10 things that you can already do/have done in English
5. List 10 skills that make you a good learner

Now you have your starting list of 50 good things!

The next step is to simply start developing & strengthening your ‘noticing mindset’. Try to make a regular time to check in with yourself and list what you are doing well.

Have a go at this simple activity and see if you start noticing any positive changes!

Here is the first video that I would like to share from the book I am currently reading - Talk Like TED by Carmine Gallo.

This is my favourite TED Talk from the book.

I love this TED Talk because not only is it an engaging and powerful presentation about a very important topic - but it is also delivered by an Italian speaking English.

Ernesto Sirolli is an Italian author and public speaker - and he has an Italian accent when he speaks in English.

His amazing TED Talk has been viewed over 3 million times. Ernesto proves that having an accent doesn’t make you any less effective as a speaker. Ernesto speaks English clearly, with impact - AND with an accent!

So many clients who come to me are frustrated about their accent.

There seems to be a whole sub-industry now online that pushes learning to speak English with a ‘Received Pronunciation’ (RP) accent.

Personally, I find this really UNHELPFUL, really FRUSTRATING and also really RIDICULOUS! Did you know that only about 2% of the UK population actually speak in an RP accent?! Which means that 98% don’t!

The truth is that I would actually think it was quite strange if I met a person who spoke English as a second language in an RP accent 🤣

My advice to you is to STOP worrying so much about your accent. Focus instead on developing your clarity and your impact.

Watch this video to see how Ernesto does that so beautifully!

Want to help someone? Shut up and listen! When most well-intentioned aid workers hear of a problem they think they can fix, they go to work. This, Ernesto Sirolli suggests, is naïve. In this funny and impassioned talk, he proposes that the first step is to listen to the people you're trying to help, and tap into their own entrepreneurial s...

This is the book I’m reading right now - Talk Like TED by the communications expert Carmine Gallo. I highly recommend that you get yourself a copy!

In the book, Gallo looks at some of the greatest ever TED Talks - and helps us to understand what it is that makes them great. It is full of valuable insight that you will be able to use to improve your own presentation and speaking skills. What I really love about this book, is that Gallo includes some TED Talks by speakers who have English as a second/other language - which I hope can show you that you too can be a great presenter in English!

Eventually, I would like to set up a “book club” Facebook group where we can get together to discuss great books and you can have the opportunity to practise your speaking skills.

But for now, as I’m at the beginning of my Facebook journey, I will be posting on here about what I’m reading.

I hope that you can follow along!