Private Accent Coaching

I worked with Dr. Ojakangas for 3 months. I want to thank her for her encouragement and positivity. She is a wonderful teacher and a warm and personable human! I would highly recommend her coaching.

Catherine is a great accent/communication coach for American English. She teaches in a way that is very different from typical English classrooms. At the beginning of the course, Catherine did a detailed assessment and planned the course with a very specific focus on identified problems. During the 20-class period, I have improved immensely in the accuracy of pronunciation. Also, Catherine did post-course assessments to measure the improvements.
I strongly recommend Catherine’s course to anyone who is not a native English speaker and wants to improve your conversational speaking significantly.

I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Ojakangas for 13 weeks on modifying my accent. She is pleasant and highly knowledgeable. The workload is reasonable, and you see the results throughout the program. I love the fact that your journey doesn’t stop after the program ends. You will learn how to continue to learn and be given the tools and resources to keep improving forward.

When Dr. Ojakangas and I started working togethe, my accent was already quite subtle and I wasn’t sure if she’d be able to help. During our first meeting, she won my trust when she found several areas I could work on. Two months later, she has completely transformed the way I speak!
I love working with Catherine and only wish I had found her sooner. She demystifies the American accent and gives easy, step-by-step instructions appropriate for any level. I want to tell my immigrant parents, their friends, and my friends all about her: She’s the instructor we’ve been looking for!

“I took the 16-week accent coaching program with Dr. Ojakangas.  Overall, it was an amazing course.  I learned how to pronounce words and sentences in the American way.  The assessment at the beginning helped me identify what issues my English had and what I should focus on.  Lessons were tailored to what I needed.”

“In addition to working with my accent, Dr. Ojakangas helped me with presentations I had to do for high management (several CEOs), reviewing the contents, making it clearer, correcting and helping me to stand and say my speech! I would definitely recommend Accent-American to anyone needing help with American English!”

“I was frustrated because it seemed to me that only a few of my MBA classmates fully understood what I said… therefore I worried that I would fail courses due to such issues… Thanks very much Dr. Ojakangas, for helping my speech becomes less-accented and boosting my confidence in speaking English.”

“During conversations I would always get the question: ‘Where are you originally from?’… This prompted me to take an accent reduction cohort class at a public university, which helped, but not to my satisfaction. Then I found Cathy… I don’t think anyone can find a better teacher than Cathy!”

“I went to an English language center for two weeks before working with Dr. Ojakangas, but they didn’t teach me how to pronounce English as Americans do. At Accent-American… I learned the system of American pronunciation, which I think is important to do business internationally…

I would absolutely recommend Accent-American’s courses to friends and colleagues!”

“Dr. O. is a real professional accent coach and not an ESL teacher. If you seriously want to improve your accent, her classes should be considered as a first priority.”

“Knowing what my mistakes are was huge for me. Knowing my areas of weaknesses and working through them gave me a weekly dose of confidence. There is no session that I did not have an AHA! moment. The AHA! moments made me look forward to the sessions. I believed that the more AHA!moments that I got to, gets me close to completely eradicating my accent. What I enjoyed about Dr. Ojakangas is how she was able to inject humor into her sessions. The humor made it fun and exciting even though I saw her late evenings after work when I was almost tired. Her encouragement throughout the sessions was remarkable. Even when you think you are disappointing her, she finds a way to support and cheer you on. This was a valuable and rewarding experience. Certainly, it’s a milestone toward a complete eradication of my accent.”

“In a warm, inviting, and relaxed atmosphere, Cathy identified what specific aspects of my speech pattern could hamper my audience from receiving and understanding the main points of my presentations. Cathy then gave me techniques and methods to slow down my speech rate during public presentations, as well as suggestions as how to become a more dramatic and effective speaker. I’d highly recommend her to others seeking to improve their presentation and communication skills.”

“I worked with Dr. Ojakangas for six months on pronunciation as well as public speaking skills. I don’t think any other course could have provided me with such detailed analysis of my accent and instructions on how to improve. I feel much more comfortable now in front of the class I teach. Her teaching of pronunciation and her suggestions to improve my presentation skills were tremendously helpful! Thank you, Dr. O.!”

“I visited Accent-American because I was having difficulties expressing myself clearly in English. I am from Japan and, although my English is good, I needed some assistance. Sometimes my boss had difficulty understanding my conversation. Dr. Ojakangas determined what sounds I needed to improve, and how to come to the main point of discussion directly. I am very pleased with the services she provided.”

“I came from Cameroon knowing how to speak English, but not the standard American English. My intonation was crazy, I chewed some of the words, especially the last sounds of a word and my pronunciation to many words was funny. Many people could not understand more than 60% of what I was saying. Three weeks after enrolling with Accent-American I realized people didn’t have to ask me to repeat myself for them to understand what I was saying! I had conversations with people. My intonation got better and better. I could pronounce words clearly without swallowing my words and, above all, I could easily communicate with people without the fear of not being understood. Thank you, Accent-American (Dr. O.) for helping me!

Dr. O., who asks you to call her Cathy, is patient and has excellent teaching skills, the assignments and pace of the class are perfect. She will help transform your deficiency into efficiency! You can achieve your goal with personal effort and Cathy’s instruction.”

“I took the 13-week individual course from Dr. O. and I LOVED it! I am more confident now when speaking, and when I make a mistake I know the scientific basis and can correct myself. The program, materials, and most of all Dr. O.’s expertise were all great. I give her teaching a 10 out of 10, and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to improve their American English pronunciation!”