Speech Coaching: What It Is, What Happens in Sessions, and Who It Helps
Speech coaching helps you improve how you speak by working with a coach who listens and gives you feedback. You can work on your speaking pace, volume, how clearly you say words, or how you organize your thoughts. People often work with a speech coach to speak with more confidence in meetings, presentations, interviews, and everyday conversations.
In this article, you'll learn what a speech coach does, which skills coaching covers, what happens in a session, and how coaching differs from speech therapy. This article is for adults who want to speak with more ease at work or in daily life. Some people want to change one habit, like talking too fast, while others are preparing for a new role or a bigger audience.
Key Takeaways
What speech coaching is: Speech coaching is one-on-one or small-group training where a coach helps you speak more clearly and confidently.
What a speech coach works on: Coaching covers public speaking skills and everyday communication, including pace, volume, pitch variation, clear speech, message organization, and body language.
What a session looks like: Coaching often starts with a discussion of your goals and a sample of how you speak. You then practice skills in real situations, such as presentations, meetings, or interviews.
How coaching helps with nerves: A plan and support from a coach can help you manage speech anxiety and build confidence.
What Speaking Skills Does Speech Coaching Cover?
Can Speech Coaching Help With Speech Anxiety?
What Happens in Speech Coaching Sessions?
Who Benefits From Speech Coaching?
What We See Working with Clients
What Is Speech Coaching?
In speech coaching, you practice how to deliver your message more clearly and confidently. A speech coach pays attention to how you sound and how you organize your message, then gives you specific strategies to try. You work with examples from your own meetings, presentations, and interviews.
Many people start with public speaking tips, such as "slow down" or "make more eye contact." Tips like these can help, but they are often hard to apply without feedback. It's easy to miss your own pace or filler words while you speak.
A coach can notice speaking habits you don't recognize and point them out while you rehearse. The goal is to help you speak more clearly while keeping your own speaking style. With regular coaching, many people find their public speaking and presentation skills improve.
What Speaking Skills Does Speech Coaching Cover?
The speaking skills a speech coach works on affect how easily people can follow you when you speak. These include pace, volume, clarity, vocal variety, organizing your message, and body language.
| Skill | When it gets in the way | What coaching works on |
|---|---|---|
| Pace | You talk fast when you are nervous, and listeners miss key points | Pausing between thoughts and slowing down on the points that matter |
| Volume | Your voice is quiet or trails off at the end of sentences | Breath support, so listeners can hear you clearly |
| Clear speech | Words run together, or people ask you to repeat yourself | Forming speech sounds clearly, including sounds at the ends of words |
| Vocal variety | You sound flat, even when you care about the topic | Changing your pitch and stressing key words so your main points stand out |
| Organizing your message | You ramble or bury your main point | Stating your main point first, then giving a few reasons |
| Body language and presence | You look down at your notes, fidget, or seem unsure | Posture, gestures, and eye contact, including looking at the camera online |
| Connected Speech Pathology | connectedspeechpathology.com | ||
Pace: Pausing between thoughts can help you control your speaking rate. It also gives listeners time to take in what you said.
Volume: Coaches can work on breath support, including diaphragmatic breathing, which involves letting your belly and lower ribs expand as you breathe in. Using your breath to support your voice can help with vocal projection, so listeners can hear you clearly.
Clear speech: If people often ask you to repeat yourself, speaking too fast, mumbling, or not saying every sound clearly can be part of the reason. Articulation exercises can help you form speech sounds more clearly, including sounds at the ends of words.
Vocal variety: Changing your pitch and stressing key words can make your vocal tone more expressive and less flat. That emphasis also shows your audience the ideas that matter most.
Organizing your message: A coach can help you learn to state your main point first and then give a few supporting reasons. One way to do this is the Rule of Three, which means giving three reasons to support your main point. For example, "I recommend we move the launch to March. We need more time for testing, our largest client is unavailable in February, and March fits the budget cycle." A short story or example can also help listeners understand and remember your message.
Body language and presence: Your posture, gestures, and eye contact can affect how listeners understand your message and how much authority you convey. Coaching can address your body language when you speak, including how you stand, where you look, and what you do with your hands.
Can Speech Coaching Help With Speech Anxiety?
Coaching can help you manage speech anxiety by giving you a plan and a listener to rehearse with. A plan for how to start and what to do if your mind goes blank can make public speaking less stressful.
Speech anxiety can also affect how your voice sounds when you speak. When you feel anxious, your breathing can get shallow, and nerves can push you to speak faster. Coaching can include breathing exercises, practicing at a comfortable pace, and strategies to manage public speaking anxiety before a presentation.
If the fear is intense or affects other parts of your life, a mental health professional can evaluate and treat the anxiety itself. Speech coaching can help you build communication skills and confidence while you receive care for anxiety.
What Happens in Speech Coaching Sessions?
Speech coaching sessions often include setting goals, reviewing how you speak now, and practicing a more confident delivery.
Your First Coaching Session
The first session usually starts with your goals and a short sample of your speaking. That sample can be part of an upcoming talk or a few minutes about your work. Your coach can record it so you can compare your speaking over the course of coaching.
Your speaking coach then identifies the patterns that matter most for your goals and recommends where to start.
Practice With Live Feedback
Sessions often include plenty of speaking practice, whether you meet online or in person. You speak, get feedback on what worked and what to adjust, and try again right away. Coaches often use the real material you will deliver, such as slides for a quarterly team update or answers for a job interview.
Some people come to prepare for one event, such as a keynote, a pitch, or an interview. Others develop their speaking skills over a longer period and use each upcoming presentation as a chance to try new skills.
Virtual Presentation Skills
Many meetings now happen online, so sessions often cover virtual presentation skills. These include looking toward the camera at key moments and adjusting your lighting and camera position so people can see you clearly. Because you often see less of the audience's reaction online than in person, you can also work on varying your pitch and pace to help you connect with listeners.
One-on-One Coaching or a Group?
One-on-one coaching focuses on your speaking habits, and the whole session is spent on your goals. Group workshops and public speaking courses give you a chance to speak in front of others and learn from how they present. Some companies and government agencies arrange communication training for teams so employees can rehearse together.
Toastmasters runs public speaking clubs where members give prepared speeches and short impromptu talks, then get comments from other members. If you mainly want to speak in front of an audience more often, a group gives you regular chances to do that. If you want to change a specific speaking habit or prepare for an important event, one-on-one coaching gives you more time to work on your goals.
Public Speaking Training for Professionals
Check out our blog on public speaking training for professionals for more information!
Who Benefits From Speech Coaching?
Speech coaching can help adults develop communication skills for work and feel more at ease in conversation. People who seek coaching often include:
Executives and leaders who want an executive speaking coach to help them build executive presence and credibility.
Subject matter experts, such as engineers, who want to better explain complex topics to people outside their field.
Sales and client-facing staff who want to enhance their presentation skills for pitches, product demos, and unexpected questions.
Job seekers and students getting ready for job interviews, class presentations, conferences, career fairs, or networking events.
People who speak English as an additional language and want to work on pronunciation. Accent modification training with a certified accent trainer can help.
People who want to speak up at work with more confidence, such as those with leadership potential.
You don't need to wait until someone comments on how you speak. Many people start coaching before a new role, a performance review, or a career move.
What We See Working with Clients
We coach professionals and executives on how they speak at work, from team meetings and client calls to presentations for senior leadership. The examples below are based on real clients we have worked with. Identifying details have been changed to protect privacy.
One client, an engineer, delivered monthly project updates to senior leaders. He had strong technical knowledge, but he tended to lead with background information and save his recommendation for the end. Leaders often asked him what he was recommending.
We worked on opening each update with his main recommendation, organizing the supporting details, slowing his pace, and preparing for the questions leaders were likely to ask. Over time, he reported feeling more confident in these updates and said leaders spent more of the meeting discussing his recommendation.
Another client, a manager, felt nervous speaking up on video calls. Her voice was quiet, she trailed off at the end of sentences, and she often waited so long to speak that the conversation moved on.
We worked on taking a breath before she spoke, keeping her volume steady through each sentence, and planning how to start when she wanted to share an idea. She reported speaking up earlier in discussions and feeling more confident with her team, although she still felt nervous before larger calls.
Frequently Asked Questions About Speech Coaching
1. Is speech coaching the same as speech therapy?
No, speech coaching and speech therapy have different goals. Speech therapy helps people with speech, language, voice, and other communication difficulties, including stuttering and articulation disorders. Communication coaching focuses on everyday and professional speaking goals, such as giving presentations, communicating clearly at work, and handling conversations.
2. How many speech coaching sessions do you need?
The number of sessions varies from person to person and depends on your goal. Some people prepare for one presentation or interview in a few sessions. Changing a long-standing habit, such as talking too fast, often takes longer and needs regular practice in between.
3. Can you do speech coaching online?
Yes, you can participate in speech coaching online or in person. Online coaching lets you meet from home or work and rehearse for presentations held on video calls.
4. What should you look for in a speech or public speaking coach?
Look for a public speaking coach who has helped people with goals like yours. Ask how they give feedback, how they measure success, and whether they have worked with people facing similar challenges.
To learn more, see our guide on finding a public speaking coach.
How Connected Speech Pathology Can Help
Connected Speech Pathology helps adults speak more clearly and confidently at work and in daily conversations. We do this through one-on-one online communication coaching.
In sessions, we work on your speaking pace, volume, thought organization, and managing nerves. You can rehearse upcoming presentations and interviews with your coach. Because we work online, you practice in a setting similar to the video calls many people use at work.
Our communication coaches are speech therapists with graduate training in speech-language pathology, including speech science. That training helps them identify speaking habits that affect your pace, voice, and clarity. They also look at how you organize your ideas, use gestures, and present yourself to an audience.
Summary
Speech coaching gives you personalized feedback and practice to help you speak more clearly and build confidence. Sessions give you time to work on the communication skills that matter most for your goals, using presentations or conversations from your own life.
Public speaking is a skill you can learn. A plan and regular practice can help you build confidence and manage your nerves when you speak. One-on-one coaching gives you goal-focused feedback, while Toastmasters clubs offer regular group speaking practice.
About the Author
Allison Geller, M.A., CCC-SLP, is a communication coach, speech-language pathologist, and founder of Connected Speech Pathology, an international online practice providing professional communication coaching and speech therapy for children, teens, and adults. With more than two decades of experience, she has worked in medical and educational settings and published research on aphasia. Today, she leads a team of specialists who help clients improve their skills in public speaking, vocal presence, accent clarity, articulation, language, fluency, and interpersonal communication.
