How to Choose the Right Speech Coach for Professional English

If you already speak good English but still feel that you are not always heard, understood or taken as seriously as you should be at work, the problem may not be your English.

It may be your speech.

For international professionals, communication difficulties often have very little to do with grammar. You may have an excellent vocabulary and years of experience working in English, but still find that presentations feel flat, meetings move too quickly, or people occasionally ask you to repeat yourself.

This is where professional speech coaching can help.

But what should you actually look for in a speech coach? And how is speech coaching different from English lessons, pronunciation training or accent reduction?

What does a professional speech coach work on?

A speech coach looks at how your spoken message reaches the listener. That can include pronunciation - but pronunciation is only one part of it.

Professional speech coaching may also work on:

• stress

• rhythm

• chunking

• intonation

• pace

• breath control

• connected speech

• vocal authority

• presentation delivery

• clarity in meetings

• communicating complex ideas

These features work together.

For example, you can pronounce every individual word correctly and still be difficult to follow if you give every word the same amount of stress. Similarly, you can have a noticeable international accent and be extremely easy to understand because you use rhythm, emphasis and intonation effectively.

The objective should therefore not be to eliminate an accent, it should be control.

How can I improve my English pronunciation for professional situations?

Start by thinking beyond individual sounds.

Traditional pronunciation teaching often concentrates heavily on individual consonants and vowels. These can matter, particularly when a particular sound regularly causes misunderstanding. But professional communication happens in sentences, not dictionaries. English listeners also rely on stress and rhythm to understand which information matters. Consider a sentence such as:

“We need to finish the report, send it to finance and speak to the client.”

When spoken as one uninterrupted stream, the listener has to work out the structure. But when it is organised into meaningful chunks, that structure becomes much clearer:

“We need to finish the report / send it to finance / and speak to the client.”

Speech has no commas or paragraph breaks that the listener can see. Instead, speakers signal structure through pauses, changes in pitch, rhythm and stress. This is one reason pronunciation coaching for professionals should include much more than simply learning how to produce particular sounds.

What makes someone sound confident in professional English?

Confidence is not simply volume. In fact, speaking louder or faster can sometimes make somebody sound less authoritative. Professional authority tends to come from control. That means knowing where to slow down, which word to emphasise, where one idea finishes and another begins, and when to allow silence.

A useful principle is:

If everything is stressed, nothing is stressed.

Strong speakers create contrast.

Important information receives greater prominence. Less important information recedes.

That creates hierarchy in the sentence and makes it easier for the listener to understand not only what you are saying, but what you want them to notice.

For international professionals, developing this control can make a considerable difference to presentations, negotiations, interviews and senior meetings.

How do I choose the right speech coach?

First, decide what problem you are actually trying to solve. If you are a beginner learning English, then you probably need an English teacher. And if you have a very specific articulation or medical speech issue, then you may need a speech and language therapist.

But if you already use English professionally and want to become clearer, more controlled and more authoritative when speaking it, you may benefit from a specialist speech or communication coach. Look for someone who can explain why something is difficult rather than simply asking you to repeat sentences.

A professional speech coach should be able to identify whether the problem lies in pronunciation, stress, rhythm, pace, intonation, breath, organisation of information or a combination of these. They should also work with your real communication. That could mean analysing:

• a presentation you need to deliver

• an interview answer

• a client call

• a board presentation

• a technical explanation

• a recorded meeting

• a media appearance

The closer the training is to the communication you actually need to perform, the more useful it becomes.

Are there specialist speech coaching programmes for leaders?

Yes, and leadership communication requires a slightly different approach.

Senior professionals are rarely struggling because they do not know enough English. In fact, quite often, the opposite is true (one of Mary’s favourite phrases is, ‘you don’t need more grammar’ - on the basis that most international learners know more grammar than natives!) They are usually dealing with complex information, specialist vocabulary and sophisticated arguments. The difficulty is making that complexity easy for somebody else to process.

Executive speech coaching therefore focuses not only on pronunciation but on how expertise is delivered. A leader may need to learn how to:

• make the key message immediately obvious

• explain technical information simply

• sound authoritative without sounding aggressive

• control pace under pressure

• use pauses effectively

• emphasise important information

• speak clearly to international audiences

• answer difficult questions without rushing

This is communication strategy as much as pronunciation.

What about executive voice coaching for non-native English speakers?

The term ‘voice coaching’ can mean many different things. Some voice coaches come from theatre and performance backgrounds. Others specialise in public speaking, presentation skills or vocal production.

For an international professional, it is worth choosing somebody who also understands spoken English. That is because many perceived “voice” problems are actually language problems.

• A speaker may sound flat because their first language uses pitch differently.

• They may sound rushed because they are not reducing unstressed English words.

• They may struggle to emphasise a key point because sentence stress works differently in their first language.

• Or they may pronounce individual words accurately while linking them together in a way that makes the sentence harder for an English-speaking listener to process.

Effective executive voice coaching for international professionals therefore needs to consider both voice and language.

Online speech coaching for international professionals

Online coaching works particularly well for professional speech because the training can happen in the environment in which much business communication these days already takes place. Meetings, presentations, interviews and client conversations increasingly happen through a screen. Your sessions can also be recorded and analysed, allowing very precise work on pace, stress, pronunciation and delivery.

At Vox London, I work online with international professionals who already speak English well but want greater control over how they sound.

The aim is not to replace your accent. It is to help you understand how spoken English works so that you can use it deliberately.

We may work on individual pronunciation where necessary, but we also look at the larger system: chunking, stress, rhythm, intonation, connected speech, breath and the organisation of information. Because ultimately, professional communication is not about sounding like somebody else. It is about making it easy for people to hear what you have to say.

Why not drop me a line at mary@thevoxlondon.com - and in the meantime take a look at my online speech diagnostic tool, Clarity. Or, if you’re ready to take the next step, book a full speech assessment with me.

Beyond Pronunciation: Why English Teachers Need Speech Training

Most experienced English teachers can explain a conditional sentence.

They can identify a relative clause, correct a tense error and probably produce an excellent lesson on phrasal verbs with very little preparation.

But ask them how to teach spoken English when a student's individual sounds are technically correct but they are still difficult to understand, however, and the conversation becomes much more complicated.

Is the student speaking too quickly? Is the rhythm wrong? Are the stressed words carrying enough weight? Are the vowels being reduced in unstressed syllables? Is the speaker running out of breath halfway through the sentence? Is the problem articulation, vocal energy, phrasing or simply the way the speaker is organising information through speech?

This is where traditional English language teacher training, pronunciation training for English teachers and even some TEFL professional development can become surprisingly thin.

Teaching English pronunciation is not just listing sounds

Most English pronunciation training begins with individual sounds.

The /θ/ in think. The difference between ship and sheep. The British (or American) pronunciation of a particular vowel.

These are obviously important. Vowels and consonants are part of intelligible speech and should form part of every English teacher's toolkit.

But spoken English does not happen one phoneme at a time. It happens in phrases. Clear English depends on stress, rhythm, weak forms, reductions, connected speech, pausing, pitch and intonation. Speakers organise meaning through the voice, not just the grammar. A student can pronounce every word in a sentence reasonably accurately and still be difficult to follow.

Experienced teachers recognise this instinctively. The challenge is knowing how to teach it properly once you have identified the problem.

The IPA is essential. But the IPA is not enough.

I am a strong advocate for teachers understanding the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) - in fact, it surprises me even now when I meet TEFL Teachers and they tell me they either don’t use the chart or don’t understand it themselves (‘so how do you teach speech?!’)

For anyone interested in IPA training for English teachers, it provides a shared technical language for describing speech sounds accurately instead of relying on vague instructions such as, ‘listen to me and repeat’. (Check out my YouTube video about the IPA here if you’re interested.)

But transcription alone does not teach someone how to speak more clearly.

Knowing that a vowel is /ɪ/ rather than /iː/ doesn’t tell a teacher how to help a student who rushes through every sentence. Nor does it solve flat delivery, or explain why some sounds just disappear pear, or help the learner who reaches the end of every sentence with no breath or vocal energy left.

Speech is physical. This is one of the most important things I have learnt from working across English language teaching, pronunciation, speech and executive communication - the voice has to do something.

Advanced pronunciation teaching needs to become speech training

Executive communication coaching approaches spoken English differently. The first question is not:

"Is this grammatically correct?" But rather:

"What does the listener hear?"

• Can the listener follow the speaker easily?

• Does the speaker sound rushed?

• Where does the important information land?

• Does the voice support the message or fight against it?

This changes the way we think about teaching English pronunciation.

• Breath affects pacing.

• Stress affects intelligibility.

• Rhythm affects listener effort.

• Pausing helps organise information.

The modern goal of English pronunciation teaching is not to eliminate someone's accent. It’s to help speakers communicate with confidence and minimal listener effort. That requires teachers to understand not only English, but how speech works.

Many English teachers can hear the problem but cannot diagnose it

Excellent teachers often know that a student sounds unclear. They say:

• "He needs to slow down."

• "She needs to speak more clearly."

• "Her pronunciation needs work."

• "He sounds monotone."

Those observations are sensible, but they’re incomplete.

• A speaker who sounds fast may actually need better phrasing.

• A monotone speaker may need stronger sentence stress rather than more pitch movement.

• Someone with "poor pronunciation" may have perfectly acceptable vowel and consonant production but weak articulation and ineffective connected speech.

If we diagnose the wrong problem, we teach the wrong solution. This is why advanced pronunciation training for English teachers needs to move beyond minimal pairs and isolated sounds. Teachers need practical listening skills.

The teacher's own voice matters too

Another subject rarely discussed in English teacher professional development is the teacher's own voice.

Teachers spend hours every day modelling spoken English. We explain, demonstrate, repeat, correct, encourage, present, and diagnose. And we do this whether we teach in classrooms or online. Our voice is one of our primary teaching tools.

Vocal authority does not mean speaking with Received Pronunciation (unless you want to.) But rather understanding how breath, pacing, stress, articulation, rhythm and vocal variety influence communication. If you’re teaching ESL:

• Can you deliberately demonstrate sentence stress?

• Can you exaggerate connected speech?

• Can you control your pace?

• Can you model clarity rather than simply describing it?

Those are all practical English teaching skills.

Practical speech training for English teachers

This thinking forms the basis of the Vox London One Day Intensive for English Language Professional Educators.

It is an advanced pronunciation course for English teachers, trainers and language professionals who want to become significantly more confident teaching spoken English. It is NOT a beginner's TEFL pronunciation workshop as it assumes you are already qualified and have some real-life teaching experience. The training combines practical IPA with techniques drawn from speech coaching and executive communication.

Participants work with:

• pronunciation diagnosis

• vowel and consonant production

• connected speech

• stress and rhythm

• breath control

• articulation

• pacing

• speech clarity

• vocal authority

• practical pronunciation teaching techniques

Teachers also receive ready-to-use lesson materials, classroom activities and practical strategies that can be used immediately with advanced English learners.

Continue developing your pronunciation teaching

The one-day intensive is designed as an immersive practical experience.

Teachers who want to continue developing their skills can also explore the English Teacher Toolkit (ETT), Mary’s growing collection of practical resources, lesson ideas and classroom materials for English language professionals. Together, Vox London and ETT aim to bridge the gap between traditional language teaching and modern speech teaching.

The future of English pronunciation teaching

English is now spoken internationally across accents, cultures and first languages.

As teachers, our role is no longer to help every learner imitate one particular accent, but to support them producing spoken English that is clear, intelligible and easy to understand. That requires more than teaching sounds.

It requires teaching speech.

If English language teaching has evolved, then pronunciation teaching for English teachers must evolve too.

Executive Voice Coaching: 7 Habits That Weaken Your Professional Voice

So you’re in the Boardroom and you know exactly what you want to say.

You have prepared your figures, checked your slides (twice) and thought through your argument. Then the meeting begins … and your voice changes.

It becomes thinner. Faster. And flatter.

Your shoulders tighten. You stop breathing properly. You begin monitoring every sentence. You can hear yourself speaking, but you do not sound quite like yourself.

This is often described as a confidence problem. Sometimes it is. But more often, it is actually a collection of physical and psychological habits that interfere with your voice. And these habits are particularly common among intelligent, highly capable professionals. They affect native English speakers as well as international executives using English as a working language. Your professional voice is shaped by your breath, posture, muscular tension, thought patterns and sense of social safety. When those systems become restricted, your voice becomes restricted too.

This is the reason why proper, effective, executive voice coaching needs to go beyond generic ‘presentation skills’ or business English advice.

Here are seven habits that can weaken vocal confidence, clarity and authority.

1. You are trying too hard to sound professional

This may be one of the most common problems I address in executive voice coaching.

Many senior professionals develop a special ‘work voice’. It is more formal than their ordinary voice, but often less expressive. They reduce pitch variation and suppress emotion. They speak in a controlled, even tone because they believe that professionalism requires vocal restraint. The result may sound competent but … oddly impersonal. Listeners hear the information, but they don’t hear expression, passion or urgency.

This matters a lot because leadership communication is not simply the transfer of facts. An executive voice also tells the listener:

• what matters most;

• what is urgent;

• what is uncertain;

• what the speaker believes;

• what should happen next.

When every sentence sounds the same, nothing sounds like it really matters. There are no vocal clues as to what is actually important.

A good executive voice coach does not teach you to perform a more impressive version of yourself. The aim is to remove unnecessary control so that your real thinking becomes easier to hear.

2. You are listening to yourself instead of speaking to the listener

The moment you begin asking yourself, ‘How do I sound?’, your attention moves away from the audience.

You start supervising your voice while trying to communicate at the same time.

You may be mentally checking your pronunciation, grammar, accent, and vocabulary all at the same time, while also attempting to explain a complex idea. That is an enormous cognitive burden.

This habit is especially common among international professionals seeking business English coaching. Their English may already be excellent, but they continue to monitor every sentence for possible errors. The little voice in their head says things like:

• Was that the correct tense?

• Did I pronounce that word properly?

• Am I speaking too quickly?

• Do I sound senior enough?

By the time the sentence reaches the audience, it has passed through several layers of inspection.

The answer is not to stop caring about clarity but to move your focus outward. Instead of asking. ‘How do I sound?’, try asking, ‘What does my audience need to know next?’

That is a central principle of executive voice coaching; communication occurs on the listener’s terms. Your message is only successful when the listener can follow it, understand its significance and know what to do with it.

3. Your brain is rewriting the sentence while you speak

Most people have one ‘internal editor’ that lives in their brain. The ‘little voice’ we mentioned above in (2). A kind of fact-checker or filter that they run ideas through before they speak them. In my experience, high-performing professionals often have an entire team of them! They check whether an idea is intelligent enough, diplomatic enough, accurate enough and impressive enough before the speaker opens their mouth. The idea then receives several quick mental revisions while the speaker is still talking.

This creates familiar problems:

• false starts;

• overlong sentences;

• repeated reformulation;

• excessive background;

• unnecessary qualification;

• weak sentence endings.

To put it another way, the speaker begins speaking before they really know what they want to say. Then halfway through, the internal editor objects. The speaker changes direction, adds more information, changes direction again, and then finishes in a similar - but not really quite where they had planned - place.

This is not a lack of intelligence. It is intelligence interfering with delivery.

A key part of executive communication coaching is learning to reduce the distance between thought and expression. That means organising the idea before launching the sentence, speaking in meaningful chunks and finishing the point cleanly. A strong executive voice is not one that says everything - it is one that knows what to leave out.

4. Your neck, jaw and shoulders are controlling the sound

The neck, jaw and shoulders are popular storage areas for tension. When people worry about taking questions, or disagreement or uncertainty, these muscles often become tight. The shoulders rise. The jaw locks. The tongue becomes less mobile. The head moves slightly forward. Unfortunately, this is also the area through which the voice must travel.

• A tight jaw can restrict articulation and resonance. 

• A tense tongue can reduce clarity. 

• Raised shoulders interfere with efficient breathing. 

• Neck tension can create a pressed or effortful sound.

The speaker may then try to compensate by pushing harder - that rarely helps as it just creates more pressure, not more presence.

Next time you are about to speak at an important meeting or give a presentation, try this:

• Allow the shoulders to drop.

• Create a little space between the back teeth.

• Let the tongue rest forward rather than pulling it backwards.

• Exhale fully before beginning the first sentence.

These are simple adjustments, but they are central to professional voice work. Executive voice training is often less about adding performance and more about removing interference.

5. You hold your breath while deciding what to say

Breath-holding is one of the clearest signs that a speaker is overcontrolling the communication process. It often happens:

• before answering a difficult question;

• while searching for a word;

• when challenging a senior colleague;

• when presenting an unpopular decision;

• when speaking English under pressure.

The speaker pauses, but instead of continuing to breathe, they freeze. Then they begin the sentence with insufficient air. This makes the voice sound thin, rushed or uncommitted. The ending loses energy. The speaker takes a large breath halfway through or forces the final words from the throat.

Breath is not a decorative feature of speech. It is the energy source.

In executive voice coaching, we work on keeping the breathing system responsive while the mind is thinking. This does not mean taking big theatrical breaths before every sentence, but instead allowing breath to continue during moments of thought. It is also impossible (as far as I am aware!) to built a voice with resonance and depth without understanding and being able to control our breathing.

6. You are using throat tension instead of airflow

When the breath is restricted, the throat often takes over. This may create a tight, gritty or hoarse sound. The speaker feels that they are working hard but still does not achieve enough volume, resonance or authority. This is common among people who:

• spend hours in meetings;

• teach or coach online;

• record frequent videos;

• speak over background noise;

• attempt to sound more forceful or senior.

It is also surprisingly common among ladies who have learned to lower or harden the voice in order to sound authoritative (i.e. masculine - see my YouTube video on Elizabeth Holmes for more on this).

A stronger professional voice usually comes from better breath coordination, clearer resonance and more intentional emphasis.

The goal is not to sound louder everywhere. It is to direct vocal energy towards the words that carry the message. That is one of the practical differences between generic public-speaking advice and specialist voice coaching for executives.

7. Your face has stopped participating

Some professionals attempt to appear calm by removing almost all facial expression.

The lips barely move. The jaw performs the minimum work required. The upper face remains fixed.

This may feel composed, but it can make the voice sound monotonous and articulation less distinct.

Facial movement helps to shape speech. It also supports vocal variety. When the face remains entirely impassive, the voice often follows. This doesn’t - of course - mean smiling through a financial warning or staff disciplinary matter, nor does it mean performing every emotion theatrically. It simply means allowing your face and voice to respond naturally to your speech; a warning should sound - and look - different to a welcome. 

A professional voice should still sound human

The best business speakers do not sound polished because they have removed every irregularity. They sound effective because their voice, words and intentions are aligned. 

• Their breathing supports the sentence.

• Their emphasis reveals the structure.

• Their pace gives the listener time to think.

• Their tone changes when the meaning changes.

• They are not constantly asking themselves, ‘How am I coming across?’

• They are thinking. ‘This matters. Here is why. Here is what happens next.’

That is what vocal authority sounds like and what working with Vox London executive voice coaching creates.

Why not check out Mary’s speech diagnostic tool, ‘Clarity’ and discover what you actually sound like in English.

Why Learn a British RP Accent in 2026?

Received Pronunciation is no longer the only acceptable way to speak British English. So why are people still actively choosing to learn it?

 It is a reasonable question. The British accent landscape has changed enormously. Regional accents are heard far more widely in broadcasting, business and public life, and few serious speech teachers would now suggest that a person needs to erase their natural accent in order to be taken seriously.

 At the same time, interest in RP accent training, British accent training and elocution lessons has not disappeared. People still contact me because they want to develop a more polished, recognisably British speaking style. Some are international professionals. Some are actors or public speakers. Others simply like the sound of modern Received Pronunciation and want to learn how to produce it.

 And perhaps that is the most straightforward reason of all.

 Sometimes – sometimes! - you are allowed to choose an accent just because you like it.

What is an RP accent?

Received Pronunciation, usually shortened to RP, is a form of British English pronunciation traditionally associated with educated speakers in England. Historically, it became linked with institutions such as the BBC, the professions, elite education and public life.

 The old version of RP sounds a little different from the British English we hear today. Listen to newsreels or broadcasting from the mid-twentieth century up until about the 1990s and the vowel shapes, pitch patterns and delivery may sound odd and a bit theatrical to a modern listener.

 That is not generally what people mean when they ask me to help them develop an RP accent now.

 Modern RP is less rigid (speech teachers refer to this as being ‘more central’). Think of the controlled, precise British speech associated with actors such as Benedict Cumberbatch or Tom Hiddleston, or the polished speech of many contemporary British broadcasters.

The attraction is not simply ‘sounding posh’. Modern RP has a recognisable vocal quality: nice clear vowel shapes, precise consonants, controlled rhythm and a particular use of stress, pitch and intonation. Personally, I think it is nice to listen to!

Why do people still want to learn Received Pronunciation?

 For some learners, there may be professional reasons. English may be their second or third language, but they work extensively with British colleagues, clients or institutions. They want a consistent British pronunciation model rather than a mixture of American English, British English and features transferred from their first language.

For others, RP accent training is connected with performance. Actors may want another accent available to them. Speakers, YouTubers, and presenters may want greater vocal control.

Some people have emigrated to and settled in England and, now they are using English as their main language, want their pronunciation to sound more recognisably British.

 And then there are the people who tell me, quite openly, that they simply love the accent. I’m going to pause here for a moment because while we rarely question someone who chooses to learn Parisian French rather than another variety of French, or Spanish-Spanish (as opposed to Latin American Spanish) or who develops an interest in a particular musical or artistic tradition. Yet accent training is sometimes discussed as though a learner's only legitimate goal must be basic intelligibility.

 Of course, being understood matters. I have spent much of my career teaching English speech and pronunciation with precisely that goal, and I talk somewhat obsessively about Global English. But speech is also aesthetic.

You may prefer one vocal style to another. You may enjoy the sound of long British vowels and the movement of English intonation. Or you may just be interested in exploring what your own voice can do. Those are perfectly good reasons to study British elocution.

 Can you learn an RP accent as an adult? 

Yes - although I would be suspicious of anyone promising that you will magically acquire a perfect British accent in a weekend - or that it is something that an app can teach you. Let me explain …

Accent is physical. It is not like learning a new language, nor is it just a matter of repeating sounds (hence apps are of limited use here).

 When I teach British elocution and RP pronunciation, we work with the jaw, lips, tongue, airflow and voice (the ‘articulators’). A vowel is not an abstract symbol on an IPA chart. It is a physical movement in the mouth.

 If your first language uses a different vowel system, your tongue may automatically return to familiar positions. If your language has a different speech rhythm, you may give every English word roughly equal weight. If certain consonant clusters do not occur in your first language, you may insert a vowel or lose a sound entirely.

These are learned physical habits and we need to retrain them.

Traditional ‘old school’ elocution teachers – like the ones I trained with - understood this very well. Speech training involved listening, imitation and repetition. You heard the sound, copied the sound, practised the physical movement and repeated it until the new pattern became easier and you built muscle memory (yes, muscle memory - your face and mouth are full of muscles!) I still use that methodology.

 What I do differently, however, is make the practice more focussed on the real world. I do not think there is a value in giving an English learner an extraordinarily complicated sentence full of obscure vocabulary simply because it contains twelve examples of the same vowel. The brain has enough to do!

 Modern accent training should allow you to concentrate on the voice without also trying to decode an English tongue twister written in 1954.

What do you actually learn in RP accent training?

Developing a modern RP accent involves a lot more than learning individual vowel sounds. Vowel shape is important, particularly where your existing pronunciation differs significantly from a contemporary British model. Consonant precision and word endings also affect the overall sound. And much of what people perceive as ‘sounding British’ happens across the whole sentence.

 English uses strong and weak syllables. Unimportant grammatical words are frequently reduced. The neutral vowel, or schwa, appears constantly. Words connect. Sounds influence neighbouring sounds. Stress tells the listener where to place attention.

 Then there is intonation - the musicality of speech.

 A speaker can produce every consonant correctly and still sound unlike a natural British speaker because the pitch movement and rhythm of the sentence belong to another language. This is probably the thing that my learners have found the most challenging (but we normally get there in the end!)

My RP accent training is rooted in elocution and practical speech work. We learn the new sounds and then we take them into spontaneous conversation, because that is where accent training becomes interesting. I am constantly checking:

• Can you maintain the new vowel when you are thinking?

• Can you keep the rhythm when someone interrupts you?

• Can you use the accent without sounding as though you are performing in a school play?

Do you have to lose your original accent?

No.

I do not believe that every international English speaker needs to sound British. My wider work at Vox London is based around Global English and the reality of international communication. But The Vox London RP Edit is different. It is pure speech training for people who have actively chosen a modern Received Pronunciation model. The aim is to develop an additional vocal setting: a polished, precise and recognisably British way of speaking that you can use deliberately and consistently.

You may use it professionally. You may use it socially. You may eventually find that parts of it naturally become incorporated into your everyday speech.

Or you may simply enjoy learning to sound more like the British speakers you have listened to for years – because that is how YOU yourself enjoy hearing spoken English. And in 2026, perhaps that is the best reason of all to learn an RP accent?

Why Most Executive Communication Training Starts with the Wrong Idea

Most communication training begins with words - we are taught vocabulary, grammar, presentation skills, storytelling techniques, and persuasion frameworks. Entire industries have been built around helping people choose better words. But I’d argue that communication begins long before language. Before you can persuade or influence anyone, you need a functioning instrument capable of producing a clear, engaging sound. And that’s why many professionals (and their teachers) focus on the wrong thing.

The problem isn't always what they're saying. More often than not, it's the system delivering the message.

The Three-Part Engine of Speech

Human speech is remarkably similar to a musical instrument. It has three essential components.

• First, there is the power source. The lungs and diaphragm generate the airflow that drives speech. Without airflow, there is no sound.

• Second, there is the sound source. The vocal folds inside the larynx vibrate hundreds of times per second, transforming moving air into sound waves. This is where pitch is created.

• Third, there is the resonance system. The throat, mouth, tongue, jaw, and nasal passages shape and amplify the sound. These structures determine much of what we recognise as vocal quality, richness, and presence.

If any part of this chain isn’t firing properly, it makes it more difficult to get our message across. Not impossible. Just a lot harder.

The Hidden Cost of Listener Effort

When communication breaks down, we often assume the issue is language.

• We need more or better vocabulary?

• More grammar?

• Or maybe our accent is too strong?

Now sometimes some of that is true - but not often. 

I’ve worked with highly educated professionals who have excellent English, but have been difficult to follow because they rush, speak on insufficient breath (this one is huge!), flatten their intonation, or fail to create enough sound contrast (this means it’s harder to tell where one sentence ends and another starts). All of which means that the listener has to work harder (we call this ‘increased listener effort’). 

The more effort required to understand someone, the harder the listener has to work to decode the message. That leaves less attention available for the ideas themselves.

This is one reason why two people can say exactly the same thing and receive completely different responses. One feels clear and authoritative but the other feels tiring. The difference is often acoustic rather than linguistic.

Why This Matters in Global English

This becomes even more important in international environments. Most business communication today takes place between people who do not share the same first language.

• A German manager may be speaking English to a Brazilian colleague.

• A French entrepreneur may be pitching to investors in Singapore.

• An Indian executive may be leading a meeting attended by participants from five different countries.

In these situations, communication is not judged against a native-speaker standard but against a much simpler question: how easy are they to understand? This is one of the central ideas behind Global English. It isn’t about sounding British or American, or any other native-type accent. Its primary goal is to reduce listener effort.  The easier you are to understand, the more likely your ideas are to be understood, remembered, and acted upon.

The AI Factor

There is another reason this really matters. Increasingly, we are not just speaking to humans but through machines.

• Video conferencing platforms generate transcripts.

• AI systems summarise meetings.

• Speech-recognition tools convert spoken language into searchable text.

These systems don’t care whether you sound like the King of England or a rapper from New York. They care about clarity. They reward clear articulation, predictable pacing, logical structure, and strong acoustic signals. In other words, many of the same qualities that help humans understand you also help machines understand you. As communication becomes increasingly AI-mediated, clarity becomes more valuable than accent.

What Professionals Should Focus On Instead

If your goal is to communicate more effectively, I’d suggest you start with the foundations.

• Pay attention to breathing. Create enough airflow to support your voice rather than squeezing words out of your throat.

• Slow down. Most professionals speak faster than they think they do.

• Use contrast. Important ideas need emphasis. Key points need space.

• Allow pauses. Silence helps the listener process your ideas and gives your message structure (Barack Obama’s speeches are a masterclass in using pauses. for great effect)

• And, most importantly, remember that communication is not measured by what you say, but by what the listener understands.

Final Thought

The future of communication will not belong to the people with the most sophisticated vocabulary but to the people who can make complex ideas easy to understand. That begins with language … but it starts even earlier than that, with breath, sound, and resonance. 

If you’d like to test your English under pressure, why not check out Mary’s speech diagnostic tool ‘Clarity’ by clicking on this link.‍  ‍