Public Speaking Course.

The course

Eight weekly one-to-one sessions that take you from “I get through it” to “I look forward to it.” Unlike a group workshop, every session is built around your material, your voice and the specific situations you actually speak in: the board update, the conference keynote, the all-hands, the pitch.

It is taught entirely by Clarke Curran, from the first session to the last. There are no associates and no rotating trainers.

What I cover

Weeks one and two diagnose what’s actually happening: I record you, we watch it back together, and separate the habits worth keeping from the ones costing you the room. Weeks three to five build the mechanics: breath, pace, pause, emphasis, and a structure that an audience can follow without effort. Weeks six to eight are pressure: you rehearse real material, on camera, with interruptions, until delivery holds up when your heart rate doesn’t.

The method, in full

Public speaking is two problems rather than one, and most training picks one and hopes the other sorts itself out.

What you say. There are five structures that cover nearly everything a professional is asked to speak at: TED-style, hero’s journey, problem-agitate-solution, numbered framework and testimony. You pick one in the first fortnight and stop starting from a blank page. Inside that sit four storytelling patterns — STAR, CAR, nested loop and callback — which are what the room actually repeats afterwards.

How you say it. There are only four things about a voice you can change while you are speaking: power, pause, pace and pitch. Four is few enough to hold in your head with a hundred people watching. We work them in the order that pays fastest, which is pause first, then pace, then power, then pitch.

Nothing here is withheld. The same material is published free on this site, and clients still book, because reading about pace and hearing yourself do it are not the same experience.

Who it’s for

Senior professionals who speak in front of people they need to persuade, and who are tired of relying on adrenaline to get through it. Most clients come to me with a fixed date in the diary. If yours is sooner than eight weeks away, I compress.

Adults only. This is not children’s coaching, and it is not LAMDA or exam preparation.

How it works

Sessions run 60 minutes, weekly, online over video wherever you are. Between sessions you get short recorded exercises, ten minutes a day, not an hour. You keep every recording, so the progress is on file rather than a matter of opinion.

Why it is online, including for London clients

This is a London practice and every session is delivered over video, including to clients ten minutes away. That is a deliberate choice rather than a limitation.

The recording is the method. Close-mic audio is far more diagnostic than a room: you hear the breath you took, the pause you did not take, the two words that lost the sentence. In a room, both of us are relying on memory and politeness. On a recording, the evidence is sitting there and neither of us can argue with it.

It also means the schedule works. Sessions fit into a working day rather than around travel, and clients in New York, São Paulo and Singapore get the same coaching as clients in Mayfair. Coverage runs across UK, European and US business hours.

What it costs

£960 for the eight-week block, which is £120 an hour. Six weeks is £750, four weeks £520, and a single session £140. The first thirty minutes are free, recorded, and end with a written list of what to work on whether or not you book anything further.

Prices are published in full because you should not have to book a call to find out a number.

Course, training, or a single session?

Three different things, and people arrive asking for the wrong one about half the time.

• This course is the structured eight weeks, for someone who wants the method rather than a fix for one event.
• Public speaking training is bespoke, built around a single event, team or weakness. Choose it when there is one talk that has to go well and no appetite for a curriculum.
• A single session is £140 and is genuinely useful before one specific talk. It is not enough to change a habit.

If you are unsure, the free thirty minutes will tell you which, and I have no interest in selling eight weeks to someone who needs two.

What changes

Clients finish the course with a repeatable method for building and delivering a talk, a voice that carries without strain, and a much smaller gap between how confident they feel and how confident they look.

The nerves usually do not disappear, and I would not promise that. What changes is that they stop taking the voice with them.

Try the material first

The whole curriculum is published free, with no account and no email required: twelve lessons in the free public speaking course, from breath under pressure to handling questions.

Work through it and see whether you can do it alone. Plenty of people can. The ones who book are usually the ones who found that reading it and being able to do it on the day turned out to be different problems.

Common questions

How much does the public speaking course cost?

£960 for the eight-week block, which works out at £120 an hour. Shorter blocks are £750 over six weeks and £520 over four. A single session is £140. The first thirty minutes are free and include a recorded assessment.

Is this an online course or live sessions?

Live, one to one, over video. There is no pre-recorded material to work through alone. Every session is with Clarke Curran, and every one is recorded and sent to you afterwards.

How long does the course take?

Eight weekly sessions of sixty minutes. Four weeks is enough to change how one specific talk goes; eight is what it takes for the habits to survive pressure. If your date is sooner, the course compresses.

Do I need to prepare anything before starting?

Bring a talk you actually have to give, or one you recently gave badly. Real material makes the first session diagnostic rather than theoretical. If you have nothing scheduled, that is fine too.

What if public speaking is not really my problem?

Clarke will tell you in the free session. If people hear you fine but you lose the room, that is public speaking. If they ask you to repeat yourself, that is elocution. If it is a stammer or a diagnosed condition, the right professional is a speech and language therapist.