BATCS GLOBAL · EST. LONDON 2006
OUR AREAS OF EXPERTISE
British Accent (RP) Training
Public Speaking Skills Training
American Accent Training
Accent Reduction and Speech Fluency
27+PRODUCTS - 40+COUNTRIES - 20YEARS EXPERIENCE
OUR STORY
In 2004, I was searching for an elocution tutor. People often asked me to repeat myself — I was repeating in the same way every time. It was a vicious circle. My foreign accent felt like a nuisance to me and to others.
After a long search, I found Linda James, a qualified phonetician with 20+ years of teaching speech in London drama schools. From the very first lesson, I fell in love with her method and enjoyed every step of my progress.
I wanted to make Linda's exclusive and very enjoyable lessons available to a wide audience, and we co-authored our first international bestseller, Get Rid of Your Accent, Part One, and later Parts Two - Advanced Level and Three - for Business. Our most recent book is Get Rid of Your Accent for Beginners. To complete Get Rid of Your Accent Collection, we recorded two video courses: Get Rid of Your Accent Part 1 & Part 2.
If your accent is holding you back, this is where your journey begins.
Olga Smith, Co-founder, BATCS Global
Meet the authors, Linda and Olga
WHAT TEACHERS SAY ABOUT OUR BOOK
"Clearly, the authors of the book have collected years of experience and expertise to create this practical and effective tool for speech study."
Joe Windley
Head of Speech, Central School of Speech and Drama, London
WHAT STUDENTS SAY ABOUT OUR LESSONS
“I had the privilege to take a number of private lessons with Olga. I reached out to Olga after I came across one of her amazing books. In a nutshell, she is amazing and very effective. First of all, I learnt a lot about my speech and accent after a careful assessment that Olga administered. Then, we worked on every issue in detail. Olga provides easy to follow explanations and also makes sure to let me speak a lot and then comment and correct. Just several lessons led to very substantial improvements. I recommend Olga to anybody who would like to master their English pronunciation, accent, and articulation without any reservations.”
Ilya Stibulaev, PhD, Stanford University, USA.
“ As a diplomat, I need effective communication skills, particularly to address public audiences through radio and TV. A clear, crisp accent is always more convincing than a thick, foreign one. I am reading Get Rid of Your Accent book, and I think it is immensely useful for foreigners like myself.”
Samuel Moncada, Venezuelan Ambassador to the UK
“I am a native English speaker. But I decided to take elocution lessons in order to soften my Australian accent (and a nasal drawl that came with it) and acquire Received Pronunciation (RP). But elocution, as I knew, is not just about accent. I also wanted to generally maximise the power and expressiveness of my voice and to achieve my full potential in public speaking. This is particularly important to me because I am a barrister and so my voice is one of my main tools of trade.
I began with the excellent books and apps in the ‘Get Rid of Your Accent’ series. I then decided to take my voice training to the next level and seek out one-to-one tuition. Since I was so impressed by the approach in ‘Get Rid of Your Accent’, it made sense get in contact with one of the co-authors, Olga Smith, who, I saw, was also in the business of giving personal lessons.
Since taking up lessons with Olga Smith, it is no exaggeration to say that the change in my voice has been dramatic. I have now not only mastered all the sounds of RP, but eliminated bad (or at least suboptimal) habits in my speech, and my voice is more powerful, authoritative, expressive and interesting. There are huge benefits to one-to-one tuition and professional feedback on the idiosyncrasies of one’s voice that it affords. But beyond this, Olga’s particular approach and method is excellent and unique, for the following reasons.
First, the standard she sets is high. She uses traditional teaching methods employed to teach RP and speech in the top English drama schools to training actors (resulting in the rich voices and polished accents of top British actors, both past and present). I have researched other elocution providers and the conventional modern approach seems to be to water-down these high standards (perhaps driven by fashionable ideas that too high standards offend against egalitarian ideals). It seems that Olga’s traditional methods of elocution teaching are very difficult if not impossible to find elsewhere (at least outside drama schools).
·Secondly, she really knows what she is talking about. She is very perceptive to the nuances of speech when giving feedback, and very knowledgeable about the techniques to make the voice powerful and expressive, and about methods for learning and acquiring new habits.
·Thirdly, lessons with Olga are always enjoyable, with fun (and often funny) speaking exercises. She has a warm and engaging personality which creates a real rapport between teacher and student.
I unreservedly recommend Olga as a teacher for anyone who is serious about improving their speech and achieving high standards with it.”
Oxford Graduate Barrister from London, the UK
Accent Reduction Workshop in the Russian Embassy in London conducted by Olga Smith