FAQs

Not at all! Beginners will find everything they need and more. Established trainers with a strong foundation of knowledge and skill, never fear! You will improve your listening skills, feedback methods, and student management practices. Trainers who have experience with other student training materials also appreciate the dramatic difference in the range, specificity, and organization of the information and activities provided.

We offer an all-in-one training for coaches as well a robust e-learning portal for students. Everything you need is available in one place. Our training materials are extremely thorough and well-organized. We have more video, audio and practice activities than we have seen in any other program. Every little detail is covered in our 900+ lessons, including in-depth videos, audio, and practice for stress, intonation, linking, and reductions.

Some training systems offer downloadable worksheets and audio. Save yourself a ton of time and hassle by letting students access everything they need, INCLUDING HOURS OF VIDEOS, directly through our e-learning site. You don’t need to hunt for anything, download anything, or send anything to your students. Our e-learning site is fresh, modern, and frequently updated. We continually add new content.

Not only does our training cover every concept thoroughly, but we also provide hands-on skills training for trainers… and not just a couple quick assignments, but many activities. Working through our program will boost your confidence and make you much better equipped to work with real, paying students. Even trainers with years of previous accent training experience have told us how much they have learned.

Some training programs are live, but don’t include the same amount of content that we share with you. With your registration, you will have access to over 35 total hours of video. In addition, you’ll find hours of audio samples to study, tons of information on starting/growing your business, and much more.

On top of all that, you’ll get information on marketing and growing your business. We share specific ideas about what to do and what not to do in order to keep your students satisfied and coming back for more. You’ll learn how to create consistency and stability in your business income.

Here are some of the benefits of using our system.

1. Build knowledge

There is way more to accent training than being able to label a vowel as a “high front vowel.” This type of information, while true, won’t give your students what they need. We provide extensive placement and movement instructions for each sound so that students can produce sounds more easily and more consistently.

You’ll learn overarching concepts and patterns by language background that help you put errors into perspective. This will help you save time and lead to better results for your students.

Stress and intonation are tricky concepts. We didn’t like how “muddy” these concepts felt and how difficult they were for our students to master, so we developed a better way to teach them. You’ll learn the rules that native speakers don’t even realize they use, the exceptions, and how to teach these concepts as efficiently as possible. Videos and practice activities are provided to break the concepts down and make them easy to grasp.

2. Improve listening skills

In order to use the knowledge you’ve acquired and give feedback that works, you need to be able to listen to your students with a highly-tuned ear. When you hear an error, you need to know exactly what is going wrong so that you can instruct the student. The more confident and clear you are in assessing your students and giving them direction, the faster they will learn and the more they will trust you. When you fumble around or rely on the student repeating after you to “get” the sounds, students can feel frustrated and may begin to believe they won’t be able to do it on their own. If you rely heavily on a “listen and repeat” approach, they will likely be right! We find that students need to develop independence so that they can use sounds and concepts consistently on their own outside of class.

Our unique program allows you to listen to non-native speakers from around the world, practice transcribing errors, and learn how to provide individualized feedback based on those errors. You’ll learn to hear large and small differences between sounds by studying real errors that real students have made in producing American English. Become familiar with error patterns from different language backgrounds at a much higher level by getting hands-on experience.

Don’t practice on the first students willing to trust you with their time and money! Practice in advance with our system so you can get those first students great results.

3. Provide specific, helpful feedback

Use feedback strategies that we’ve curated through years of work with hundreds of students from 46 different countries. Learn ways to explain tough concepts and how to scaffold difficult sounds to build bridges to success.

4. Support students’ learning

The learning process can be challenging and frustrating for students. Because of this, students may avoid practicing, practice differently than we have advised them to, or drop out of classes completely. Supporting students in their learning is a critical component of the process. We’ll help you prevent common problems, quickly identify and address frustration points, and keep your students moving forward so they can achieve their goals.

Our comprehensive training materials allow you to teach efficiently, with all of your content organized and easily accessible. Our e-learning site is visually pleasing and packed full of content.

The question is not whether you “can,” but whether you “should.” If you could provide significantly better services from day one with your first student, why wouldn’t you? Being a native speaker or even a speech-language pathologist does not make you qualified to do a great job teaching American English pronunciation. As they say, “you don’t know what you don’t know.” Of course, you will get better over time, but how much better and how quickly?

When you provide better training, you get better results. Better results lead to more referrals. The more referrals you get, the faster you will achieve your business goals, whether that means increased side income or establishing a steady stream of business so you can quit your day job.

Okay, that’s the end of our sales pitch!  It’s possible to do a fine job, but why settle for fine when you can offer great services?! Our primary goal in offering this training is to provide a better way for students to access consistently high-quality lessons from amazing teachers like you. Please reach out to us with any questions.

We have everything you and your students need for a comprehensive, detailed program. This includes students at the very beginning of their pronunciation-learning journey as well as those who can almost pass as native speakers. Our content addresses even tiny details that actors need to be believable in their roles as American speakers.

We believe you will find every activity you need and much more. That being said, if there is anything you feel would be a beneficial addition to the training content, please let us know! We are happy to consider creating that for you and adding it to the site.

Please note that our in-depth training on leading effective phone consultations, administering and analyzing the CANNS (our assessment), and planning strategically for evaluations is included in your registration fee. As our assessment is thorough and requires significant notation, we use paper protocols. Testing protocols will need to be purchased for use with students but are NOT necessary for you to finish the training course and become certified.

This training is for speech-language pathologists with 1+ year of experience, speech-language pathologist assistants with 2+ years of work experience, and/or ESL teachers or linguists with basic understanding of phonetics and 3+ years of teaching experience. Registrant must be a native speaker of Standard American English.

Registrant will sign a non-compete for the greater Austin area (this includes both live and remote training for people residing in the greater Austin area) and further agrees not to provide training to other trainers, English teachers, speech-language pathologists, or anyone who engages or has engaged in English pronunciation or language instruction.

If you need to cancel your registration for a live workshop, you may do so 30 days in advance of the training for a refund less a $200 cancellation fee provided you have not yet accessed Voices of the World’s online training resources.  You may also transfer your registration for a live course to our online training course with no additional fee. No refunds will be provided for cancellations less than 30 days before the live training event. A refund will not be provided if the registrant has accessed our online content. Cancellations will be accepted in writing only and must be received by the stated cancellation deadline.

Voices of the World reserves the right to cancel an event due to low enrollment, inclement weather or other circumstances which would make the event non-viable. If Voices of the World cancels or reschedules an event, registrants will be offered a refund provided they have not yet accessed any online training content. If online content has been accessed, registrants will be offered a transfer from our live training workshop to our online certification course. In the event of a cancellation, registrants may also transfer their registration to another live training workshop if it is available. We reserve the right to correct any print errors.

Online training courses are non-refundable. We want you to be sure and confident about your investment. If there is any additional information you need to make your decision about whether we are the right course for your needs, please get in touch with us before purchasing. We are happy to talk with you over the phone and answer any questions you have.

TLDR: No, you may not.

We consider certified trainers to be part of our team. We value your trust in us and work hard to make sure you have what you need for excellent training sessions. In return, we ask that you understand and respect the ongoing time and effort it requires to develop and improve our training content. In order to continue providing high-level, high-quality instruction and materials, we need your help in protecting our content as if it were your own. By registering for our online or live training, you agree not to disclose any confidential information provided to you. This includes our training strategies, resources, and materials. Making copies (of any kind including digital and/or print), sharing usernames/passwords/login credentials for the e-learning site, or sharing information with unauthorized parties for any reason will automatically result in loss of certification, access to our online or printed content, and permission to use our method. Please reach out to us with any questions about this policy.

Students need to purchase access to the content on our e-learning site. The current cost is $180* per year. After this, students may renew at $15*/month. The e-learning site, Englission.com, includes extensive information and practice activities for each concept, video tutorials, quizzes, answer keys, and language activities.

Please reach out if you have any questions about current pricing as fees are subject to change.

We want as much consistency as possible in the administration of our training method. The best way to ensure that you have the skills you need to be successful is to access the information and use it on an ongoing basis. It’s like the old expression… “if you don’t use it, you lose it.” As with anything, having information you can revisit and review as needed is critical. With an ongoing subscription to our e-learning site, you’ll be able to access our flow charts, evaluation guide, course and session sequences, video tutorials, and other trainer coursework. You’ll also have access to new and updated content, important changes, and more.

No problem! We understand that life happens. Certified trainers may put their certification on hold for up to two years. If your subscription to our e-learning site goes inactive, we will automatically put your certification status on hold. During this time, you may not advertise use of the Rupp Method or provide training services using the Rupp Method. You may renew your e-learning subscription at any time within your two-year hold window. After that point, please get in touch with us about next steps.