Frequently Asked Questions

If you’re an existing client with a question relating to your current course, please click here.

 

Our Courses

Your course will include 5, 10 or 15 one-hour sessions depending on your chosen package. Each course is fully bespoke, tailored around your goals and needs. You will also receive a 140 page manual to use alongside your sessions and to practise at home. You will have the full support of your coach and the LSW Head Office team during your course as well as an online portal where you can manage your sessions.

Yes! We are not a cookie cutter with a one-size fits all approach. Each course is made bespoke to your needs to ensure you get the most from it. The first step in personalising your journey with us is a Discovery Call so we can understand your communication goals and aspirations. From this we can recommend a coach that best fits your needs and then your coach will tailor your Taster Session and bespoke course.

Yes, if that is what suits your personal needs and will help you achieve your goals in the best way possible, then our coaches will certainly mix in elements of different courses for you. Our courses are totally bespoke and designed to fit you!

Which course you choose is dependent on your goals. All of our courses are bespoke and designed to your needs. For instance, if you are looking to develop your effectiveness as a communicator in English and feel that your accented English may be getting in the way, we can mix our Effective Communication and Accent Softening courses for you. After your Taster Session you will discuss what elements of our courses are best suited to your needs with your coach who will then send you a course outline proposal. If you’re not yet sure what you would like to focus on, and would like assistance from our coaches, then just select the “Not Sure” option when booking a Taster Session.

Our five-session courses will cover all of the basics you need to transform your communication, but you need to make sure you’re putting in the practice alongside! Our 10-session courses allow for a bit more breathing space so that all tools can be explored more deeply as well as giving time for them to embed. Our 15-session courses allow you to really dive into the tools and techniques covered by the Serlin Method™ and give you ample opportunity to practise them with your coach.

With that said, the amount of sessions our coaches recommend completely depends on your personal goals and your learning style. For Accent Softening, we recommend a minimum of 10 sessions so that you have enough time to cover all of the sounds in neutral spoken English.

We have a unique trademarked method, the Serlin Method, which is based on a foundation of psychology, neuroscience, performance & coaching. We teach proven communication tools that seem simple to learn and yet have powerful effects. We’ve seen the results over the past 12 years. Our deeply empathetic 1:1 coaching is entirely bespoke and results-focused, built around your personal goals, budget and availability, and designed to help you reach your highest potential as an authentic communicator. Our talented coaches are handpicked for their skill, experience, warmth and empathy. They bring our touch of magic and are truly committed to delivering excellence and value. You have the flexibility to book sessions at your own convenience, with a coach of your choice. All our courses start with a 1-hour Taster Session, giving you the chance to meet the coach and make sure they’re a good fit for your communication goals, and you’ll learn powerful techniques from our method in just one hour. 

Our Accent Softening course is for non-native, fluent English speakers who feel their accent sometimes gets in the way of their communication. During the course you discover the specific ways your speech differs from neutral spoken English and locate sounds that are holding on to your accent. You will also work on your intonation in order to recreate the melody and rhythm of neutral English speech.

Effective Communication works to improve your effectiveness as a communicator in English so you sound engaging, articulate and clear when speaking. It can also help to eradicate habits such as mumbling or speaking too fast. With effective communication you can build rapport more easily with others and enhance your non verbal communication using facial expression, gesture and posture. You will also work on using vocal expression and increase vocal impact to draw people in with your voice.

Elocution is for native English speakers who want to become clearer and more confident communicators. If you mumble, use fillers or drop your t’s and d’s then our Elocution Course is just the thing to set you on the path to communication finesse.

Our Interview Power is a totally new approach to interview training that goes far deeper than eye contact and a firm handshake. We incorporate tools from coaching, performance and psychology, as well as classic interview training and bring it together in a seamless way that leads to tangible results.

Our Public Speaking course uses proven tools from our method so you can be a consistently powerful, confident and impactful public speaker and presenter. Depending on your specific goals and challenges, your coach will teach you how to write a speech that is authentic, inspiring and has that magic spark that engages your listeners. You’ll learn how to build connections with your audience using body language and vocal delivery techniques, both in person and online.

All of our courses can be delivered virtually via Zoom with your coach. If you’re looking for independent online study, our popular Mastering The British Accent – Accent Softening and Confident Speaking 10-week online course is designed for non-native speakers and delivered via our eLearning platform. The course gives you access to videos, interactive exercises and quizzes and is designed to help you become a clear and confident communicator in English, at a pace and format set by you. You can learn more about our online accent course here.

The amount of sessions our coaches recommend completely depends on your personal goals and your learning style. For Accent Softening, we recommend a minimum of 10 sessions so that you have enough time to cover all of the sounds in neutral spoken English. We can cover the basics of our Effective Communication course in five sessions, but you have to be willing to put the work in alongside. For our Interview Technique course, you have the option to take one, three or five sessions.

We post copies of our manuals out to all clients based in the UK. You will also receive a PDF via email.

Yes, absolutely. Think of our coaches like a personal trainer. We can give you the tools and methods you require to transform your communication, but you need to be ready to put the work in too to reach your goals.

Yes, our coaches prescribe homework between sessions. This usually takes the form of short and regular practice exercises that you can easily incorporate into your daily routine.

It all depends on your goals and how much work you’re willing to put in alongside your sessions. Most of our clients see an immediate difference from the Taster Session – you’ll be invited to record a before and after exercise so you can see the difference for yourself.

There are four stages of learning to your communication journey with LSW:
1. Unconscious incompetence
2. Conscious incompetence
3. Conscious competence
4. Unconscious competence

When you’ve completed a course, you should aim to be at the conscious competence stage. This means that when you’re really focussed on the new skills, you can do it. It won’t be in your speech all the time yet though – it takes a while to become habitual. Once you’ve finished your course, you then work towards making yourself unconsciously competent, so that it’s habitual. It’s a bit like driving a car – when you’re a fully experienced driver – you’re still focussing on the road but you’re not thinking to yourself “I need to check my mirrors” or “I shall now touch on the brake as I approach the roundabout” – these things happen automatically, and that’s the level you should aim to get to with your communication. Once you’re at this stage with one part of your communication, you can then work on other challenges. For example, you might be excellent when prepared for a presentation, but still feel a sense of panic when you’re asked spontaneous questions – that’s an entirely different skill. Your journey doesn’t end when you finish your course – you can build up other strands of your communication over time, and come back to us for more sessions. Once you’ve worked with us, you’re part of the LSW family and have access to discounted courses – get in touch to find out more.

It’s really dependent on the child and their individual communication goals. We can work with children aged 10 years old and above. Generally we don’t coach children younger than 10 years old however, we are open to exceptions if our coaches and director agree. Generally speaking, children are so influenced by many external factors at a young age when it comes to their accent so we tend to recommend a minimum age of 15 for accent work. As a first step, we usually recommend children have a go at some sort of theatre class, as this often helps with confidence and communication. We particularly recommend LAMDA courses which are offered by lots of companies, so a simple internet search should bring up providers near you.

The Serlin Method™ looks at what we do when we are communicating at our best, physically, verbally and tonally. When supporting you to go to the next level in your communication, we work in three areas – how you speak, what you say and what your body says. It is simple, accessible and stimulating.

Although we work with lots of non-native English speakers, we do not teach the English language. You need to be either fluent or near-fluent in English in order to take any of our courses.

Our Coaches

We offer three kinds of coach – Head, Principal and Senior.

Our Head Coaches hold decades of experience, are thought leaders in authentic communication, whose clients include CEO’s & C-Suite executives.

Our Principal Coaches have been working in the field of communication for upwards of 10 years.

Our Senior Coaches have at least three years experience in personal and professional coaching.
Both Principal and Senior coaches support clients who have management and leadership communication challenges such as increased gravitas and authority, connection and rapport, leadership presence, charisma and more.

We offer both virtual coaching sessions, through Zoom, and face-to-face sessions in our central London offices (located in Mayfair, Victoria and Bank). Some of our coaches offer regular weekly in person sessions and all of our coaches offer regular sessions via Zoom. Face-to-face sessions are limited so we do recommend that you book in advance so you don’t miss out.

Pricing

The course prices are dependent on whether you work with a Senior or Principal Coach and how many sessions you wish to do. Course prices are as follows:

Essential (5 sessions) – £995 with a Senior coach / £1,350 with a Principal Coach

Classic (10 sessions) – £1,850 with a Senior coach / £2,550 with a Principal Coach

Deluxe (15 sessions) – £2,550 with a Senior coach / £3,600 with a Principal Coach

You can see our brochure and full price list here. We do offer instalment plans and a discount if you book on the same day as your Taster Session.

We offer monthly payment instalments on our 10 and 15 sessions courses. For the Classic 10 session course you can pay in two monthly instalments, and in three monthly instalments for the Deluxe 15 session course.

Yes – we offer a 10% student discount on courses on the provision of a valid student ID card.

We offer a 5% same day discount if you pay for your course before midnight the next working day. We also offer a discount for NHS staff on the provision of valid proof of employment. You can read more about this here.

We offer a bursary scheme on coaching of up to 10 weeks at a fraction of the usual cost. This bursary is for young, talented, driven BAME individuals who have something to say for themselves and for their community, and could do with a little extra help finding and developing their authentic voice for greatest impact. If this sounds like you, then please fill in your details on this page and we will send you the application form.

A lot of our clients have their courses funded by their employer, why not see if there’s a Learning and Development budget that you can access?

We also offer discounts on courses for students, NHS employees and people working in the climate change sector. Click here for more information. 

Booking & Cancellation

We have a strict 2 business day cancellation/rescheduling policy in place. This offers a degree of flexibility to our clients as well as protecting our coaches and respecting their time. While there is a minimum 2 business day cancellation policy we appreciate you giving as much notice as possible so that we can try to refill your session. For the purpose of this policy, and in order to protect our coaches, please note that sickness is regarded as a cancellation.

Communication challenges

Our 1:1 courses are completely bespoke and tailored to you. The Taster Session is a chance for your coach to identify your specific communication goals, and the challenges that are holding you back from being a confident communicator. So whether your accent is leaving you feeling misunderstood during everyday conversations, you come across as monotone and uninspiring when presenting virtually or you want to gain confidence and speak up in meetings, we can help.

If you are a non-native speaker then please know that you don’t have to compromise your identity to have true ownership over the language, the aim is not to become accent free (or at least there is no need for that) the aim is to show through the way you speak that you know how to operate the language like a pro. Our clients find that working with us on Accent Softening helps them speak in a way that boosts their confidence by reducing mistakes and misunderstandings. We believe it’s important to soften your accent only as much as you need to so that it doesn’t get in the way of your goals and your wellbeing – and this will be different for everyone. After that, it’s about providing the support and tools to help you become the best communicator you can be. With our Accent Softening methodology we work with you on every sound that is leading to confusion, misunderstanding or blank looks, so that when you open your mouth to speak, your words come out as you intended.

We don’t teach English grammar. Our coaches will correct you when you speak but this is not a language course so you’ll need to speak either fluent or near-fluent English to do the course.

Our Principal Coaches, Gilly and Jamie, have experience working with people who stutter. While clients often report an improvement due to our powerful communication tools, it’s important to note that this is not a guaranteed outcome as our coaches are not speech and language therapists.

Our Principal Coach, Gilly, has experience working with people with a lisp. While our clients report improvements in their speech, our coaches are not speech and language therapists. You may wish to focus on Effective Communication with some sessions on the S/Z sounds to improve your communication across the board.

Discovery Calls & Taster Sessions

A Taster Session is a 60-minute session with one of our coaches (you can choose to have it in person or online). During this session your coach will listen to your goals and then teach you some powerful tools that you can use in your communication straight away. Your coach will also be able to assess your current skill level and recommend a course plan to achieve your goals, which is either 5, 10 or 15 sessions, depending on your budget and desires. A Taster Session with a Senior Coach is £145 and with a Principal Coach is £195. If you’re ready to go ahead and book your Taster Session, you can do so here.

A Discovery Call is a 15-minute call with a member of our Client Success team to discuss the challenges you feel you are facing in your communication, what your goals are and how our courses can help you. These calls are designed so that we can better understand your goals for your sessions with us in order to recommend the course and coach best suited to you.

In this 60-minute session, your coach will give you a full roadmap of every single sound of neutral spoken English and where you are in relation to that sound. You’ll also learn our really powerful Engagement Technique, which will transform your clarity and ability to engage using some very simple steps. From there, your coach will recommend a personalised 5, 10 or 15 session course plan for you depending on your goals.

In this 60-minute session, your coach will teach you two really powerful tools –  our proprietary Engagement Technique, and a tool for mastering delivery. To show you how powerful these tools are, they will film you at the beginning and the end of the session so you can see the difference for yourself. From the get go, you’ll be working towards your goal of confident and clear communication. Your coach will also be able to assess your current skill level and talk through your strengths and areas of weaknesses and what you need to do to achieve the outcomes you want. They’ll recommend a course plan to achieve your goals, which is either 5, 10 or 15 sessions, depending on your budget and desires.

If you’re ready to book in for a Taster Session that’s great! You can book your Taster Session through our online booking system here or by getting in touch with the office on office@londonspeechworkshop.com if you would like a coach recommendation.

If you’re not quite ready for a Taster Session but would like to find out more, you can book in for a Discovery Call with our Client Success Manager here.

Learn Now, Pay Later

Knoma enables you to pay back your course fees in regular instalments. Knoma is a company that shares our values and helps spread the cost over a period of time. 

If you are interested in paying via Knoma, a member of our Client Success Team will send you a link to pay via Knoma. If it is your first time paying with Knoma, you will be asked to create an account. After that, you will be asked to complete an affordability check using Open Banking. Then, you will be asked to sign the payment agreement. 

If you have a question regarding Knoma, please contact Knoma directly. You can call Knoma on 0800 037 0289. You can also enquire about Knoma at https://www.knoma.io/contact.

To be eligible, you must be a UK resident, be at least 18+ years old, and must have a UK bank account. If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact Knoma below.