The Voice Cafe

Lindsey has been a great teacher. She gave me really good tips which I keep using on a day to day basis. Skype sessions offer great flexibility without compromising on quality of teaching. Keeping up with home exercises is essential. Truly recommend it!

Although I'm not, some would occasionally take me for a native speaker of English for a while. Unfortunately, I knew that something was always giving me away, but I could never quite put my finger on it. Lindsey's helped me tremendouly! I've been taking lessons with her since August 2016 and since then I've gained confidence and skilled in word linking, English speech rhythm, intonation and stress pattern. Having a slight speech impairment, I thought I could never get much better than I was then, but Lindsey proved me wrong! Being myself a teacher and as a Linguist, I've got to say that Lindsey's lessons are always thorougly prepared, tailor-made and her linguistic stategies are amazingly effective. Lindsey is so incredibly nice and friendly that she makes you feel comfortable and relaxed immediately (not an easy task when you are as restless as I am :). Last but not least, She's very flexible : though we were only supposed to touch on speaking matters, grammar questions have also been raised, discussed and quickly resolved. You need to be prepared to work regularly ( I work about 4 hours a week), but if you do, you'll improve dramatically with Lindsey's help.Moreexpand_more

Even though English is my native language, I had trouble with the pronunciation of certain sounds, and often found that people would ask me to slow down when speaking, or to repeat what I had just said. I had considered elocution lessons for some time, especially after changing my job role into something which relied heavily on excellent public speaking skills. The problem was that most elocutionists were horrendously expensive, some charging more than £100 per hour! So I was attracted to Lindsey's website because (a) it looked professional, and (b) her prices were much more affordable. During our free evaluation session, Lindsey identified all of the pronunciation problems which I already knew I had, but also picked up on some things I wasn't even aware of. She then devised a 10-week programme for me. The programme was fantastic. She prepared pre-lesson materials, and homework for every session; and really drilled in the solutions to my problems. I can honestly say that since studying with Lindsey, I feel MUCH more self-confident! Whereas I used to shy away from public speaking, I now seek out opportunities to speak publicly and make myself heard. And have received compliments from people on my speaking ability.If you sincerely want to improve your speaking ability, whether you're a native speaker of English or not, I strongly recommend Lindsey. In fact, I have already recommended her to several peers. She's absolutely brilliant and the skills she gives you are quite literally life changing!Good luck!Moreexpand_more

I didn't think it possible to speak like a native British speaker as an adult learner. Until I met Lindsey! I always have an ear and interest for accents, but even after years of living in the UK I still struggled to “pick up” the native way of speaking. I was so glad I met Lindsey finally who has shown me the “tricks” to speak the elegant RP accent, I loved the lessons so much that I also learnt American accent with her. :) Lindsey's lessons are always fun and useful, she sent materials well in advanced which made me look forward to each lesson. I was way more confident in my speaking both at work and in life in general, I only wish I had had lessons with her earlier! Would highly recommend Lindsey to anyone who needs voice coaching. Chloe :).

I am a Spanish speaker, I have been taking one-to-one English lessons with Lindsey over Skype for more than a year and a half now. The lessons are tailor made, from pronunciation to fine-tuning how to express ideas in a business or social environment the lessons are well-planned and focus on those aspects of the language that are more of a challenge to me as a native Spanish speaker. The schedule is flexible, Lindsey is highly engaging, she gives careful attention as to what I need improving, whether intonation and rythm or particular grammar points I struggle with. I highly recommend her services to anyone who wants to become fluent in English.

I can not rate this service highly enough. As a Class Teacher for sixteen years, Advisory teacher for a Local Authority and Teaching Awards Judge and Fellow I needed to gain confidence in speaking to a wider variety of differing audiences. (Not just my 4-11 year old pupils! )I experienced an initial free assessment. Through this discussion with Lindsey we were able to highlight the areas that I wanted to develop. (The increased confidence from the assessment alone nearly had me not go forward with the lessons! ) :)Eight weeks of lessons and support have helped me beyond measure. My confidence has increased greatly. All of the techniques have helped me, especially in my 'phone voice'. I also have less sore throats as the warm up exercises have strengthened my voice and help prepare it for a day of talking.(I now warm up my voice on my way into work). I will use the web site to continue accessing my improvements and will pop back for top up sessions. Many, Many thanks for your support. Claire.Moreexpand_more

I had had great four months of Skype lessons with Lindsey. She identified various areas of my pronunciation that needed improving and devised exercises for me to practise on. As it was on Skype the timing was quite flexible and it also meant I could have lessons during a business trip to New York. The lessons were excellently prepared. From the quality of the on- and off-line materials and her feedback you can tell she has put a lot of effort into teaching. And it showed -- I've definitely noticed improvement in the clarity of my public speaking. Definitely worth it, highly recommended. One year on, my old lesson notes and feedback are still extremely useful when I review them before going on stage.

I have had 16 hours of Skype lessons with Lindsey Lawson spread over 6 months, and have been very happy with the progress Lindsey has helped me to make. On starting my lessons, my goal was to reduce my Chinese accent with speaking English. Even though I had been living in the UK for 16 years starting from an early age, I was still pronouncing many syllables - mainly vowels and the dark L(in 'well') - incorrectly. My stressing of sounds/words and word linking were also quite poor. On starting my lessons, Lindsey helped me to correct certain pronunciations: /l/, /n/, /a/ in cat, /a:/ in dark, and many others. For our lessons, we used thevoicecafe. Net, which has diagrams showing the placement of speech organs, sample words to pronounce along with sample audio from native speakers, among other resources. Lindsey then introduced me to word linking: 'what is' links to 'wha tis', 'the air' pronounced like 'they air'. I remember initially finding this very odd and did not truly believe in it, but I followed her instructions nonetheless. Armed with the knowledge of word link, I started to notice native speakers word linking all the time. I was shocked by how ubiquitous it was in spoken English and started practising it wholeheartedly.Towards the end of my lessons, Lindsey had me work on intonation, the rise and fall of tone in words and sentences to express different meanings. I also found this most useful.From this these lessons and self-study, my speech has seen a very noticeable improvement. I am now able to correctly pronounce most syllables and correctly stress a part of word or words in sentence. I've become quite natural with word linking and this has greatly improved my speaking fluidity.To summarise, I would highly recommend thevoicecafe.Net and Lindsey Lawson. Her 1-to-1 Skype lessons perhaps cost more than some, but considering the resource on thevoicecafe.Net you'll have access to, and Lindsey's ability as a teacher, it's worth every penny.Moreexpand_more

I have learnt so much from The Voice Cafe. Easy to use, exciting, interesting. I highly recommend it!