The Leader and Most Trusted Name in Accent and Pronunciation Instruction

Learn the complete system of the research-based, results-driven PESL (Pronouncing English as a Second Language) method, right here.


A comprehensive collection of training courses you can complete on your own time


Enroll today, and start learning in our self-paced courses that will teach you how to develop, use and market your skills as a Certified PESL Instructor. 

Introducing….

ILP Academy logo

ILP Academy is a web-based hub of activity and resources for all things related to the art, science and business of accent modification and pronunciation instruction using the PESL method. Whether you’re new to this niche or you’ve been serving clients for a decade or more, you’ll find classes and content here that will help you further develop your skills and services.

The core content is presented in a web-based course you complete on your own and at your own pace. You may be aware of our history of live workshops. Our entire library of training content – much more than we could ever share in a 2-day workshop, is now available here. These are carefully designed, thorough and expanded web-based courses presented in a combination of audio, video and text formats.

Throughout the 1990’s and early 2000’s, ILP had become a well-known presenter and host of live workshops in cities throughout the United States. In 2008, ILP began making this training available to even more individuals through online learning. While the in-person dynamics of a live workshop cannot be easily replicated in web-based courses, the courses in ILP Academy make up for this with a much broader and expanded scope of information. In other words, there’s much more content presented in our online courses, and virtually no time constraint. (You’ll have access to the course content for an entire year after you enroll.)

Our workshop attendees would leave their events with everything they needed to begin working with clients. As an online student, you’ll receive the same materials or their digital equivalents. Today’s clients are looking for web-based services more than ever, and the PESL certification course will absolutely prepare you for success with today’s market. 

Some of our courses may require a short completion exam to qualify for ASHA Continuing Education Units (CEUs). The exams are never intended to create a barrier to success, but to simply give you an opportunity to show you’ve absorbed the basics. You’ll work completely on your own and at your own pace.


I am very glad I finally found a phonology course that integrates so well theory and practice!

Diana P., ILP Academy student

Thank you for your wonderful course and kit. It will help me a lot in the future!

Erin C., ILP Academy student

Thank you all for your hard work! I enjoyed the course very much and look forward to putting this method into practice.

Bodhi M., ILP Academy student

“I can’t believe a week has gone by already since my colleague and I completed the training.  We’ve already started the process of engaging students.”

Jane D. – Grand Rapids, MI, Certified PESL Instructor and workshop attendee

“I am in awe of your willingness to offer support and guidance to the rest of us based on your own experiences. What you shared was extremely valuable. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.”

Lisa – West Vancouver, BC, Certified PESL Instructor and workshop attendee

Dear soon-to-be Certified PESL Instructor,

If you’ve had a strong urge to explore the feasibility, practicality, effectiveness and motivating nature of accent and pronunciation training in a variety of professional settings (corporate training, 1-on-1 client work, web-based instruction or in clinical workplaces), you’re invited to discover the research-based and highly structured yet flexible design of the PESL Accent Modification Method today in an online course designed to be completed at your own pace, built upon the same concepts, materials and content presented at our live 2-day workshop events in the past, but with so much more!

You can complete the entire training/certification program here, and also learn essential business development and marketing skills. The certification course here at ILP Academy is self-paced. Take a week. Take two. Take a month. You’ll have access to the course content for one full year.

Getting started and creating a foundation in this unique line of work doesn’t have to be overwhelming. You need a plan, a structure and an openness to developing business and marketing skills, which were very likely not a part of your academic or clinical training.

For four decades, The Institute of Language & Phonology has been a leader in presenting valuable and practical content in each of those areas, bringing driven professionals further down the path of creating, expanding or enhancing their professional skill set.

SLPs… are you curious about what it’s like to work with motivated adults outside of academic, institutional, and clinical settings

Perhaps you’ve heard people speak of this intriguing field called Corporate Speech Pathology… perhaps you’ve always had a strong interest in “accent modification” but were never sure how to get started…

and you’re looking for a new way to use your skills and credentials because billing, paperwork and documentation have begun to suck the joy out of your daily work…

or you still do truly enjoy your day-to-day responsibilities, but you’d like to add accent and pronunciation training to your current clinical offerings and bring in some new clientele?

Maybe you’d just like to get started, as quickly as possible, teaching accent and pronunciation instruction for a fee, but don’t want to start from scratch, re-invent the wheel, and wing it. (And you’re curious about how figurative language fits in, as well.)

ESL Instructors, have you been looking for a structured, organized and systematic approach to correct your “improvised” attempts at teaching American English pronunciation?

Do you have a sneaking suspicion that it might be lucrative and even fun to apply your existing knowledge in professional settings with people who want your training services… and clients who are driven and motivated to succeed?

You love your professional background, and certainly have no regrets about what you’ve accomplished, but you feel ready for something new, something different without changing career fields…

Perhaps your goal is to spend more of your time doing what makes you happy, while still using your professional strengths and skills. Perhaps you are ready to spend  time with some of the most motivated clients you’ve ever worked with.

Every one of those reasons was true for me when I decided to start offering my professional services in this field. And here are a few things I wish I knew back then:

  • Don’t listen to any discouraging voices from people who are not familiar with your skills or professional background. This is a great, exciting field and these services are in demand wherever you can find motivated professionals.
  • There just is no other program as comprehensive, flexible and effective at accomplishing its purpose (measurably improved pronunciation accuracy and clarity) as Dr. Arthur Compton’s PESL Method.
  • Months and years have a way of flying by while you’re not looking. It never pays to put off the decision to explore and learn something new. You’re going to discover options you don’t yet know about after taking the first couple of steps. Furthermore, a year from now you’ll regret the steps you don’t take today, so now is really the best time to get started .

 I’m Joe Comeau, the Training Director, workshop leader and course coordinator for the ILP Training Division.

If you’ve got the drive, you can discover ways of shifting your focus to begin using the same 24 hours each of us are given every day to accomplish new tasks that move you in a new direction. Like many SLPs with experience in nearly every clinical setting, after being a certified SLP for a decade, I began to yearn for something new, different and… well, just more interesting to do with my time and my skills.

If you undoubtedly believe that you just don’t have the time to explore options because of your current commitments, then that will be true until you stop believing it. I mention this because I’ve heard many fellow SLPs and other professionals say they’d love to explore and develop the opportunity to begin offering accent and pronunciation training to motivated adults but just can’t seem to find the time to fit it into their current schedules.

Once you change your beliefs and time management habits, you’ll find new opportunities. There’s already a large and growing community of professionals doing what you WANT to do, with an ever-expanding market place.  (You can find and contact some of them with your thoughts and questions by browsing the ILP Trainer Directory.)

There’s an even more robust community already inside The ILP Academy – just on the other side.

ILP Academy opened in 2012, with past workshop participants invited to tour and review the content. After the peer review process was complete, the doors were then opened by invitation only to a small number of professionals ready to make the plunge. Now the entire suite of online courses known as ILP Academy is open to general enrollment for all who have an interest. Hundreds have enrolled since we’ve opened the doors to our virtual training center. By the end of 2015, over 300 individuals had earned Certified PESL Instructor status by completing the training courses online. About 100 individuals have become Certified PESL Instructors each year since then.

You don’t have to be a speech-language pathologist.

Although it helps tremendously (because you will already be familiar with the concepts, terminology and methodology used in the PESL method), it is not a requirement for providing accent and pronunciation instruction. It was created for SLPs, by SLPs, but the delivery of accent modification instruction is not regulated by state or national licensing boards in the United States. The talented pool of Certified PESL instructors includes ESL teachers, linguistics instructors, drama and voice coaches and foreign language teachers.

Our courses are appropriate for any professional with at least three years of professional experience in the fields of communication disorders, ESL instruction, linguistics, voice and diction coaching, or any individual currently enrolled in a graduate-level program in Communication Disorders.

Get instant access to a growing collection of valuable ILP Academy courses.

Learn every step of the process of guiding clients from poor levels of communication to measurably improved American English pronunciation. Then work on growing a business out of these skills.

Current courses include:

  • The PESL Certification Course
  • Marketing Essentials
  • How to Start an Independent Consulting and Training Business

Upon completion of the The Compton PESL Accent Modification Certification Course, you’ll be recognized as a Certified PESL Instructor and receive a certificate of completion. ASHA members will be eligible to receive 1.0 ASHA CEUs for completing the certification course.

You will receive (at no additional cost):

  • the Phonological Assessment of Foreign Accent testing protocols (2 printed copies)
  • one Phonological Assessment of Foreign Accent Screening Kit
  • one PAFA Stimulus Words book
  • an assessment account for the Compton PESL Online Assessment (the exclusive web-based client testing hub) and 1 web-based assessment for your first paying client

You’ll have all the tools you need to begin offering services in face-to-face and web-conferencing settings.

Accent modification and pronunciation instruction for foreign-born ESL speakers continues to be a service in high demand among professionals in leadership, management and entrepreneurial roles. These will be your new clients!

The PESL course has a long history (three decades) of being the “go-to” approach for pronunciation and accent instructors. It is used not only by independent trainers, but by dozens of university speech clinics around the US, and by English language teachers around the globe. They love having a reliable and systematic approach.

It begins with a personalized assessment.

Using the same approach taught in ILPs foundational workshops, you’ll learn the step-by-step systematic approach to guiding clients toward clearer, confident, easier-to-understand pronunciation of American English, with a strong emphasis on personalized learning.

A thorough assessment and analysis process reveals the specific sounds that are making an individual sound “heavily” or noticeably accented when speaking American English. The criteria for defining a “heavy” accent is highly subjective, but let’s agree that this type of speaker has difficulty expressing a message clearly, despite being proficient with English vocabulary.

The assessment creates the roadmap – the individualized training program unique to each client.

Assess and teach one person at a time, or combine the analysis results of several learners to create a group learning experience. An instructor can create learning groups containing up to 5 individuals – all with different L1 (native language) backgrounds. The student’s pronunciation of English may bear the strong influence of Russian, Chinese, Spanish, any of the Indo-Pakistani languages, Greek… you name it. It doesn’t matter. They will each learn from individualized programs and they can learn simultaneously in group classes.

You won’t need to “match” students by their language background. You’ll be given the step-by-step instructions that make it possible to design a 90-day learning program that teaches everyone in the group only the pronunciation skills they need to make their speech easier to understand in any social or professional setting.

at least 50% easier to understand – in the first 90 days.

50% more accurate.

50% fewer pronunciation errors.

50% less frustrating repetition

But the 50% benchmark is not a self-imposed limit. It was the average improvement level shown by hundreds of speakers from over 100 different language backgrounds in the research-based design used to create the method. That means some scored lower, some scored higher. This is not about hyped-up claims. This is not about eliminating accents. This is about teaching clients a skill they can activate whenever the situation demands clearer, more accurate and easy-to-understand spoken English skills.

Ask any trainer who has delivered or conducted an entire individualized PESL program with paying clients. They will inevitably tell you that results are very often in the 60, 70 sometimes even the 80% range. If the client uses the techniques taught in the course and commits to a regular practice routine,  it would be unfair to the client to expect only a 50% change. The typical client is a highly-motivated professional who understands the need for improved communication skill. It’s a very refreshing change for many instructors looking for something outside traditional clinical settings.

English is the preferred language in business and professional settings around the world.Students, leaders, managers, business owners, corporate officers, movers-and-shakers and deal makers everywhere want to, need to communicate clearly in English to achieve their personal and professional goals. There is a huge, healthy, competitive market for pronunciation and accent instruction services, and a relatively small pool of professionals prepared to deliver the service. And we haven’t even begun to discuss web-based training options.

Every component of the PESL training system can be delivered online by a certified instructor (you!).

You may need to up your game in the area of technology and web-based conferencing platforms, but it’s a necessary and rewarding process if you’d like to expand your possibilities and offer your skilled training services to professionals nearly anywhere in the world.

Prefer a face-to-face style of training? ILP Academy courses will prepare you for all of the options. Our traditional and web-based assessment and training tools can be used in virtually any training or consulting arrangement – be it virtual or in person. Picture yourself teaching clients in your own studio, classroom or office? You’ll get everything you need by completing the course. Ready to train your clients via web-conferencing or telephone?  You’ll get everything you need by completing the course.

ILP Academy members get an “instant upgrade” to our inner networking and resource circle: AccentLink Pro

Academy membership includes one year of extended access to AccentLink Pro. Membership starts the day you enroll. [learn_more caption=”AccentLinkPro Benefits”]AccentLink Pro membership is only open to those who have completed the live 2-day workshop or the web-based certification course. (The Compton PESL Accent Modification Method Certification Course). Benefits include: a listing and profile in the Trainer Directory at 800-language.com, access to members-only downloads/forms for your business, and discounts on future purchases of trainer and client materials. This package of benefits can be purchased separately for $50 per year, but is included with all ILP Academy memberships.[/learn_more]

PLUS –

  • Updates to everything added to the academy during the term of your membership; when we add new courses, ASHA-certified SLPs can complete them for additional CEUs if they are offered. A portion of our courses include CEU eligibility, and a portion of our courses are designed for your professional and business benefit. Even if you are not ASHA-certified, the content will be relevant and valuable.
  • New business resources and information added frequently.
  • Community-driven message forums on nearly every Academy page for questions, comments and idea-sharing among participants.

CEUs can only be awarded to those completing a course for the first time, or once per calendar year for each course offering.

Join now to finally kick start your interest in accent training.