The Guardian Having a strong accent can set you back in
your career, according to new research which has confirmed the findings of
previous studies. Should it be dismissed as stupid prejudice, or should you
attempt to do something about the way you speak?
Jenni Hunt, a lawyer
from Wimbledon, and originally from Worksop used to speak with a south
Yorkshire accent, but after leaving her hometown 16 years ago, she says she
ditched her twang. "I wanted to be taken seriously and to take myself
seriously. I am pretty sure that it has helped my career," she says. In an
attempt to boost her other career performing voiceovers, she is having
one to one sessions with Frances Parkes, a speech coach, and head of
www.makethmostofyourvoice.com "When I ring up agents I speak with my lawyer's
voice, the one I use for meetings," says Ms Hunt. "People make assumptions about
you based on your accent," says Ms Hunt. "Every accent has a stigma attached
to it in various ways. I don't want people to think about my accent, I want
them to focus on what I am actually saying."
Roger Curtis - Article For
Institute of Translators and Interpreters Voice is a wonderful gift, which few of
us know how to use to its full potential. Frances explained how our voice
projects our personality, our feelings and attitudes. Through a series of
relaxation techniques, called the Alexander Technique, we all relaxed on the
floor lying on mats wearing loose, comfortable clothing. Part of a series of
exercises concentrated on two members projecting their voices across a room
full of 14 others talking in their own loud voices. By first emptying our
lungs, taking a fresh breath and then focussing our voice directly at the other
person, we had to make ourselves heard. Many found this to be an amazing
revelation since we could actually hear each other over the general
discussions. I think we all came away much better informed on what our voice
can really do in the hands of an expert. Clearly as a voice coach Frances has a
head start on the rest of us but those of us who attended the workshop went
away determined to develop this part of our make up, knowing there is a lot
more to our voice than we thought. We were fortunate to meet Frances and be set
on a new path where we can project ourselves more confidently by keeping an
audience's attention or simply by keeping our voice calm and in the right pitch
and register, qualities essential to the modern interpreter
Westminster and Pimlico News What do you do if you are a teacher with a soft voice? Faced with a class full of pupils who are not taking you as seriously as they might can be a problem. But help is out there - in the shape of voice coach Frances Parkes. The teacher sought advice from the expert and now the pupils are sitting up and taking notice. She is just one in a long line of people advised by Frances.
After training as an actress at the Guildhall School and television and theatre roles, she married a writer and began translating his work. This led to a fascination with how we use language, voice and sound, then a masters degree in interactive communication, specialising in voice production. She says the celebrated Polish theatre director Grotowski was an inspiration to her through his vocal techniques.
Today Frances spends much of her time advising actors - often at the Actors Centre in Tower Street, Covent Garden - and corporate business clients on voice projection. "The whole body is a tool for communication," she explained. "You should be comfortable, relaxed and feel free around the neck and shoulders. Take a couple of minutes to allow yourself to breathe freely. Feel the openness of your throat. Mentally place where you want your voice to be heard and allow your body to be an amplifier to your mouth. Everyone is different, but we must breathe out enough and allow our breath and speech pattern to synchronise."
She said influences on the voice included the psychological, social, work environment and physical. "Emotion could often be heard in the voice," she added. "People may have a downwards voice inflection, with depression obvious, when they have lost confidence." Frances said the work environment could affect the way we speak. In the fast paced computer world people often communicate electronically and very quickly and repeat this in speech.
She said: "The problem is listeners might not catch all they are saying. Often the solution is making sure firstly that they have enough breath and then varying speech and length of sentences. People sometimes feel they have to get out all their ideas at once. They must allow their breath and speech pattern to work together."
Energetic Frances also gives sessions at Grove Neighbourhood Centre in Bradmore Park Road, Hammersmith and Conway Hall, Holborn. She is also a member of the prestigious British Voice Association, the professional body which promotes the use of the human voice.
Voice Training for Teachers There is a way of using your voice which actually imparts a feeling of consideration and care and authority, which is far more effective than having a shouting voice.
When I do work with children, who are supposedly difficult or whatever, yes they may be different towards me because I am not going to be there over a long period of time but they only seem to co-operate with me when I start to place my voice and use my voice in a connected way, and choose to resonate my voice in a certain way. Suddenly, their ears prick up. If somebody talks to you in a very harsh way, you still know what it is that they want you to do, but half of the message gets lost because you think 'Aah they want me to do that, but they don't think I want to do it' - I have this all the time. But if somebody talks to you in a way that impresses upon you - 'this person really wants me to do that because of this reason', then I feel that they will get more of a response. We've done this with very small children and now some work is being done with secondary children.
We have so many different nationalities within our system that working with the voice definitely helps, because people pick up on different tones rather than words. You always know when you have a favourite teacher because somehow you can actually connect with them vocally.
You get teachers who need more help, it could be in sports. They know how to use their bodies, they know everything about physicality and yet vocally they are not able to be heard, especially in a huge gym environment with an echo. That is when vocal clarity is very handy. We can teach them how to use their voice in an outside environment and to reach levels they need without sapping their stamina.
I think there are other areas where we can really help. The fact that teachers have to do so much administration, and when they come away from preparing classes, away from form filling, they have to switch to an outside mode again. It is as if they are internalising, doing administration and then suddenly, they have to leave all that behind and go and teach a class and vocally they are just not prepared for it, because they've been having all this internal dialogue. It's not easy to go vocally unprepared into class mode when you have been doing administration.
There are exercises to help with the switch. These help to prepare you physically and mentally as well as vocally. We give teachers a checklist, it just takes five minutes. (The tips below are nothing to do with the checklist, which only makes sense when you've done some training).
Tips Check the way you stand and sit. If you hunch over, lean forwards or backwards, you'll be putting pressure on your voice and that will lead to stress.
Check that your shoulders are relaxed. Imagine that the space between your ears and shoulders is getting bigger.
Make sure you always have water to drink.
Root your voice by feeling the floor firmly under your feet and imagining that your voice is coming from your feet.
Think of your speaking voice as a beam of sound words. Aim this beam towards imaginary dots (or actual dots) placed on the walls just above the heads of the pupils.
Rather than taking a deep breath in, empty your lungs completely by breathing out and then the air will rush in to the vacuum created and you will have plenty of fresh breath.
Teachers who have been taught vocal techniques, have said things like '"Thank goodness the pupils are now sitting up and listening to me and, at the end of the day, I have still got a voice". There was one teacher who seemed to have a constant nervous cough. I think that part of it was her total anxiety of facing the class and knowing that she didn't have the vocal strength. We talked a lot about alignment and found she had some restriction in the small of her back. Alexander and other posture exercises have helped her enormously and the cough only comes back to remind her that her posture's out.
The best thing to do is to vocally train people as part of their training as teachers. Once they have the information and exercises, they will go on developing and developing vocally; it will be part of their own personal development. So instead of thinking 'Oh no, I've got to get the class to hear me as well as to get my point over', it will be 'Hey, today, I said that across the room, when they were shouting and they heard me.'
Interview given by Frances Parkes to Scott Swindon - educationalist and judge in
"Teacher of the Year" awards. Article
previously printed on government websites
