FAQ

Yes! Mastering Your General American Dialect provides you with the tools you need to communicate clearly, with confidence. You’ll eliminate the stress of not being understood and allow your unique strengths and skills to shine.

You learn to engage and connect with your audience through learning and playing with different sounds and techniques. Joy’s methods are adapted to the different ways that people learn: by sight, sound or action. Rather than merely hearing and repeating the sounds of the GA dialect, you’ll see Joy working with a variety of diverse clients who each demonstrate different ways of learning. You will follow their progress, and practice each step yourself, finding the “keys” to help you measure your own success. You will also receive Joy’s 50-page Workbook, loaded with exercises and resources. As a bonus, you will hear each of the work pages read by Joy in attached audio files.

For sure! Besides offering effective tools for correct General American articulation, this course will help you learn the more subtle aspects of dialect, like musicality, rhythm, and resonance. You will learn the skills to help you become a more confident speaker, enhance your presence, and advance your career or personal development. When a speaker doesn’t have to focus on “how” they are speaking, they are free to invest in the passion and purpose of “what” they are saying.

This is not a typical language course! You’ll follow the journey of a diverse group of Joy’s clients as they go through the process themselves, and practice Joy’s powerful and proven techniques. You will be able to hear and follow their progress as they take the course and practice each step yourself.

We help you find your voice so you can develop the confidence to reach, connect and resonate with your audience. You’ll learn breathing techniques to release tension, discover ways of overcoming limiting habits and fears, and find out how to use the best sounds from your body to deliver your message as you play with sound, rhythm, and musicality.

The Canadian dialect is similar to General American, but just like any dialect with regional differences, there are several differences between the two, particularly in the vowels, rhythm and musicality. The amount of body resonance heard (and felt) in General American creates a much higher status and authority, and as such is a real benefit to Canadians who want to sound more like a leader. General American is the standard dialect or “neutral accent” of North American English.Though not associated with any particular region or demographic, it is the dialect we hear in most tv and film dramas, newscasts, documentaries and commercials produced in North America.

Yes! This course helps you unlock the confidence to speak fearlessly and with authority as you discover your own rich and resonant voice. By practicing Joy’s simple, effective techniques, you will program new speech behaviours with confidence, eliminating the distraction of always thinking about “how” you are saying the words.

Yes! You’ll get key tools, strategies and techniques to become a natural, powerful and persuasive communicator both online and offline, whether one-on-one, in groups or on the phone. Mastering your General American Dialect will teach you to use resonators and play with sound to become a better listener, connect from the heart, and get what you want.

Often the most important aspect of communication is the rhythm, pacing and musicality -- and less about precise articulation. Some of the key exercises you learn will help you find those qualities in a natural, organic way, allowing your listener to focus on your message and not your delivery. Think of some of the best-loved actors who have noticeable accents. It is the story they tell that we are enjoying -- not their dialect. You don’t need to get every speech sound correct, with this course, you’ll practice different techniques that allow you to learn the General American dialect naturally. As you proceed through the course and measure your progress and success, you’ll gain the confidence and skill to engage and connect with a diverse audience.

Yes, you will receive Joy’s exclusive 50-page workbook with diagrams, resources, exercises and practice scripts to accompany each session, along with Joy’s bonus audio recordings for the extra help you need. It includes the Daily Practice and Warm-up Chart, which allows you to choose a warm up task and voice activity to practice each day, so you don’t feel overwhelmed.

Yes. Joy’s bonus audio recordings accompany each session, where Joy reads out the work pages for that episode, so you can see, hear and practice the exercises yourself.

Many of Joy’s clients come to her in frustration, having taken some of the many online dialect courses that follow the same old routine of “repeat-after-me” teaching, and not getting any positive results. Most of these courses and videos give people the impression that there is one “right way” of pronouncing the words, and only one way of learning it. This course, Mastering Your American Dialect, is completely unique. It combines different methods, tools and techniques that allow you to take charge of your own learning, no matter what your learning style. It focuses on the “key” behaviours that actually form the dialect, rather than mimicking what you hear. And, it offers the benefit of hearing a diverse group of individuals practice the dialect with you.

Joy’s techniques have been developed to allow each person to program new speech behaviours so that they become natural and organic. The exercises in this Mastering Your General American course will lead you through that process, providing solid steps to follow, with measurable results. You can follow Joy’s clients as they work through each phase of coaching, and record and compare your own sound. Using the materials provided in the Workbook, you will develop a Daily Practice Routine that gives you confidence in your own progress.

Joy’s exclusive 50-page workbook is an important part of this online course and we use it in every episode. You will be able to download it once you have subscribed to the series.

This course aims to help people learn in ways that feel easy and natural. It brings together different techniques for different learning styles. For example, you might be more auditory (need to hear and repeat) or visual (diagrams and visual cues are more helpful). Or perhaps you are kinesthetic and find physical actions more effective. Sometimes you need to get into your body, close your eyes and feel it. Each episode will offer plenty of exercises that touch on different ways of learning, allowing you to discover what works best for you. You’ll get many visual aids and practice lists (which you will find in the companion Workbook) to help you take on new behaviours. You’ll get the support you need to master the General American dialect, every step of the way.

You can focus on all the “Do’s and Don’t’s” about how to say every word correctly (which creates worry about getting it right) or you can focus on what you are saying – your message, your purpose, what you want to communicate to the listener. The message is much more important. This course aims to help you find a way to program these desired speech behaviours in the brain and the body in a natural way, so that you are not distracted by a list of rules. This frees you up to focus on your purpose, your passion and the connection you’re making.