1. What is Elocution?
Elocution refers to the quality and art of the speaker’s use of articulation and language. Elocution includes the clarity of speech sounds, the accuracy of pronunciation, vocal pitch, pause, pace and tone. Elocution also includes mastery in communication skills and the use of special vocal techniques to emphasize the speaker’s message. Elocution also includes the use of language, the type and style of words spoken to convey the speaker’s message. Therefore, the English words used are just as important as the speech sounds which produce them. Elocution and language are key components in communication mastery.
2. Can Elocution lessons help my child?
Elocution lessons provide children with the tools to speak with clarity of speech and expanded vocabulary. More importantly, Elocution lessons support children in becoming confident self-assured speakers laying the foundation to be effective communicators at school and in their future careers.
3. What age is Elocutionkids.com for?
Elocutionkids.com takes learners from 5 years to 18 years old. As the lessons are customised to meet each learner’s personal needs, learning objectives are set to support and increase each learner’s ability whilst strengthening any weaknesses in communication skills.
4. Do you teach British English pronunciation (UK accent)?
Elocutionkids.com specialises in British English Received Pronunciation (RP). We are native speakers of British English Received Pronunciation. Our young learners are taught to acquire Standard British English Received Pronunciation (RP) as well as High British English Received Pronunciation (HRP). Children on our courses and programmes learn how to produce strong British English Received Pronunciation speech sounds to be applied in their everyday speech.
5. Would Elocution help my child in which English as an additional language?
Elocution would support your child in acquiring British English Received Pronunciation as it focuses on the speech sound production of specific British English Received Pronunciation. By acquiring these special British English Received Pronunciation speech sounds, your child would learn how to improve speech clarity and articulation helping to reduce any native language interference.
6. What is the difference between your free resources and paid courses?
Our free resources are for teach-yourself learners. As with any teach-yourself course, dedication and self-discipline is required to achieve the learning aims set. In addition, there is no monitoring of the learner to ascertain whether the learner is producing the correct British English Received Pronunciation speech sounds. Our paid courses have a teacher-student approach to learning with each lesson specially structured to meet the personal needs and learning strategy of the student. This strategic approach to learning helps to ensure that the learning aims set are successfully achieved and any learner weaknesses are strengthened by continuous learner monitoring and development. Due to continuous monitoring and correction of the learner by the teacher, the acquisition of effective Elocution is considerably increased.
7. How do I know which course or level to start with?
We recommend that you book a personal needs assessment for your child. Our courses are specially designed to meet each young learner’s personal needs from the very beginning. As speech and language vary substantially from child to child as well as over time, it is important that any weaknesses found in your child’s speech or language during the assessment form an essential part of the learning programme with the learning objective to target and strengthen these specific weaknesses. A personal needs assessment is invaluable for your child’s learning and development, especially where speech and language are concerned.
8. Do you offer online lessons, in-person lessons, or both?
We offer live online one-to-one face-to-face lessons. We have found that live online one-to-one face-to-face lessons are cost-effective for our parents, carers and teachers than in-person lessons. More importantly, live online one-to-one face-to-face lessons provide the opportunity for our learners to video record their lessons so that they may refer to their recordings in order to carry out their Elocution practice.
9. Are you a replacement for speech therapy?
We are not a replacement for speech therapy. If you feel that your child has a pathological speech or language difficulty, then it is important to seek the advice of a professional speech and language therapist. As children’s speech and language teachers and practitioners, we support many young learners with speech and language difficulties improving clarity, articulation and building confidence in communication. We work alongside relevant specialists supporting the clinical or educational aims set.
10. Do you support the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) pathways?
As children’s speech and language educationalists, we are also LAMDA teachers. We encourage our young learners to follow the LAMDA learning pathways in Communication or Performance. The majority of our young learners with speech, language or learning difficulties have achieved ‘Distinctions’ in their LAMDA grades. More importantly, many of our young learners have earned Level 3 UCAS Points whilst strengthening their communication and performance skills in the LAMDA learning pathways.