As someone who has worked with her for over a year and plan to continue to do so, I highly recommend choosing Christi Barb, PhD. She is not only knowledgeable and practical, but has also had a tremendously positive impact on me. As an immigrant whose first language is not English, working in an English-speaking environment is challenging and frustrating. She not only helped me improve my accent and pronunciation, but also taught me how to communicate without feeling discouraged. I started the journey with her when I doubted whether I could handle my job as a healthcare worker die to the high communication demands. She made it possible and positive. I finally overcame my anxiety and found confidence. Progress doesn't happen overnight, so consistency is key. With her guidance, it is absolutely achievable. read more

I truly enjoyed Christi's lessons--she's the best! Attending her class was the first time I learned about prosody and pronunciation, which were entirely new concepts for me as an English learner. For the first time, I felt that English could be as beautiful as music, and it really motivated me to keep learning. Christi has an incredible ability to identify my mistakes and guide me with recommendations to improve my pronunciation. She's so patient and encouraging. She creates a stress-free environment where I always look forward to the next class. Thanks to her, I've noticed significant improvement in my skills, and I feel much more confident speaking out loud. She's also incredibly generous, having voluntarily hosted meetups for years and providing us with countless resources. I can't thank her enough for all her support. Christi was recommended to me by a friend, and I would absolutely recommend her to others, including you, so we can all benefit from her amazing teaching. read more

If you want to get rid of your foreign accent, Adastra Speech is your best choice: Christi has a wonderful personality, she`s very knowledgeable and patient, and she was able to adjust very quickly to on-line teaching during the pandemic. read more

I had been struggling with my poor english accents for years before taking christi's classes. I haven't got any english accent training and have a bad habit of pronunciation. Christi's course is very systematic. I took five classes and felt lots of improvements. I start to aware of my errors and learn to control my tongue. After the first class, my friend noticed my self-correction. It is very good feeling to know how to speak clearly and confidentally. read more

I had individual sessions with her for two and half months (Dec 2015-Feb 2016). I wanted to improve my accents and speech style for upcoming job interviews. Starting from diagnostic on my speech style, we had individual sessions based on her diagnostic and my goal. I knew some of the issues in my speech style. And I was able to improve these issues based on self-teaching and trial-and-error. However, it was time-consuming, and I wasn't sure whether I was heading in the right direction. She was very precise pointing out the problems that I had for many years in casual conversation and public speech. Her diagnosis, based on her speech pathology study, was very meticulous and was connected to the better solutions than I had. All the individual sessions were customized to tackle these issues one by one. Every class had the primary objective, derived from the diagnosis. Her materials focused on the topic that I needed most. She repeated the point until I truly understood. We did not waste time on something I am already good at. There was homework, and she gave me very helpful feedback. Within a couple of sessions, people around me started to notice some positive changes. When I compared the recordings of my voice before and after the sessions, I could clearly hear the changes she made. Now I feel much confident that before. After we had finished all sessions, she gave me a direction to improve my speech style based on the things I learned from the class. She was very generous with sharing all the important secrets / resources during and after the class. She not only gave me valuable feedback on my speech but also taught me how to improve myself. I think this is important because I should be on my own anyway. I strongly recommend her. My speech is definitely improved, and I learned how to improve my speech. Grab her when she is available. read more

Christi helped me improve my accent right in the initial consultation. She listened to me speak, identified the biggest differences between my pronunciation and the standard American speech pattern, and was the first person to clearly explain to me how to pronounce certain sounds correctly (for instance, the difference between pronouncing "can" and "can't", between "eat" and "it", and how to make my voiced "th" sound less like a "d"). I've listened to accent courses before, but I've never really understood how exactly to position my jaw and my tongue to voice these distinctions, until Christi explained them to me. Christi even sent me notes from our meeting, accompanied by a videotaped explanation. What most impressed me, apart from Christi's professionalism, was that she generously put me in touch with her colleague who specializes in my kind of speech peculiarities, and suggested that they both work with me in turn. I am now doing the sessions with Christi's colleague and I hope to return to Christi for a "rounding out" at the end. read more

Christi is an awesome and professional American accent teacher. My company has some educational fund for employees so my manager suggested me to use it for speech training. I was fortunate to find Christi. Initially, I chose her program because of the location (Central Square) and time (after work hours). She has very dedicated teaching methodology which helps me improve my spoken English a lot, especially in public speaking skills, awareness of mistakes, key features of English (intonation, emphasis of key words, pronunciation of specific sounds), most important of all, the methodology she taught me for continuous practice. And also, she has good personality and is easy to work with. I sincerely recommend Christi and her American speech coaching program. read more

Christi is a highly experienced speech expert. She's very good at identifying areas that need work and tackling them. She creates a very thorough plan to walk you through a progression that makes sense. I highly recommend working with her to anybody who wants to improve their presentation and delivery skills. Also, she's incredibly nice and it's always a fun experience to work with her. If you're on the fence just give the first class a try. You'll be back! read more

I reached out to Dr. Barb at Adastra Speech with the goal to improve my accent. It turns out that she's an excellent coach; very dedicated, knowledgeable and passionate in her field. She was very thorough in her evaluation and provided detailed feedback on how to improve. I couldn't have corrected deep rooted accent on my own; not even after years of casual conversation with native speakers. Dr. Barb incorporates technology and years of study in speech pathology into her coaching program. I could immediately notice after a few sessions significant improvement on my accent and intonation. This improvement is contributed to her program that is designed to solely focus on tackling accent, pronunciation and intonation and how to improve it. If you are looking to improve your accent/speech/intonation to sound more of native speakers, talk to Dr. Barb. I highly recommend her. read more

I am so happy that I reached out to Dr. Barb at Adastra Speech. She is an excellent accent coach; very dedicated, knowledgeable and passionate in helping her students. She was very thorough in analyzing my accent and provided detailed feedback on how to improve. I couldn't have identified and corrected deep rooted accent on my own; not even after a couple of decades of casual conversation and a formal ESL class. Dr. Barb incorporates technology and years of study in speech pathology into her coaching program. I could immediately notice after a few sessions significant improvement on my accent and intonation. This improvement is contributed to her program that is designed to solely focus on tackling accent, pronunciation and intonation and how to improve it. Thanks to Dr. Barb for her dedication to help professionals who are looking to improve their accent/speech/intonation to sound more of native speakers. I have greatly benefited from her program and her valuable feedback. I highly recommend her. read more