Find Your Voice

Sometimes all you need is the right connection.

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Find Your Voice FAQ's

Gail, Find Your Voice Founder Questions and answers with founder Gail Noppe-Brandon:

1. What is a Communication Coach?

A communication coach is a guide who is trained to advocate for the clear expression of their students' thoughts and ideas, through fear management and skill development.


2. How did "Find Your Voice" begin and what is its purpose?

I first developed this methodology when I was teaching freshmen English at New York University in the late 1980's. Everyone was busy trying to improve the communication skills of high school graduates, and I was assigned to a program for "underachievers." In an effort to bring reading and writing to life for them, I traded in the essay writing model, for a more dynamic creative writing model. Because I was a playwright and director, this eventually became a playwriting and acting model.

I was amazed to see how well even the most inarticulate kids responded to my coaching when it was individualized, and when I acknowledged the risks involved in sharing inner thoughts with others. Each of the 26 students in my courses felt as though they had received my fullest attention, and each of them was able to override the inner censors that had previously prevented them from engaging. Since that time I have worked with thousands of teachers and students of all ages, and I have never encountered anyone (including those who struggled with stuttering, ADD, depression, second language interference, low literacy, and extreme giftedness) who could not overcome their obstacles to becoming more communicative.

3. Do you have any tips for overcoming the fear of public sharing? Writing? Speaking?

The best ways to guarantee successful communication are:

  • Remember that everyone worries about how they will be received. It is normal. Don't be angry with yourself for being nervous; tell yourself you can say what you have to say despite being nervous.
  • Be clear about what response you really want; if you want to make people laugh, you will communicate very differently than if you want to get someone to take your request seriously.
  • If you are speaking, try to make the listener(s) comfortable with you, rather than focusing on your own discomfort.
  • If you are writing, remember that it's not a one-shot deal; once you realize that you can re-write something as many times as you need to, it is the most liberating feeling in the world.

4. What have been Find Your Voice's greatest successes?

Every reluctant participant who began to participate was a great success; the more deeply they were stuck, the greater the triumph. I will consider it my greatest success when every student has an opportunity to be seen and heard because every teacher will know how to make it safe and possible for them to do so with skill and authenticity.

5. If I'm not a theater or English teacher, how can I use the FYV technique?

If you give written assignments, or ask your students to speak in class, you can and should be using the FYV technique. Starting on the first day of class, you should establish yourself as a teacher who wishes to communicate with their students and in whose classroom they will be safe enough to do so. You should acknowledge how scary the sharing of written and spoken ideas is for everyone and how it is your job to help them to do so with confidence. If you are a math teacher, you can apply this to the epidemic fear of numbers and the probability of being "wrong" occasionally. If you are a foreign language teacher, you can apply it to the universal fear of sounding foolish, and if you are a social studies teacher, you can apply it to the all-too-real anxiety about memorizing data. The study of acting and writing are excellent vehicles for strengthening all of the above, but you can use your own curriculum to reinforce the same underlying principles. Every educator should be a communication coach.

6. Do you have any general tips for getting students to be more open in class?

Over the years I have done professional development work with teachers at every grade level and in every subject area. The Find Your Voice technique is being practiced in single academic classrooms, in whole school "Advisory" periods, in graduate level teacher training programs, and in elementary school "club" periods. Even if you never teach your students to enact or write a play, you can help them to become better communicators. It starts with being the teacher you always wished you had:

  • One who leads through empathy and advocacy, rather than intimidation and punishment.
  • One who wants to know and be known by their students, and takes the time to connect with them.
  • One who creates a "safe" listening environment in their classroom.
  • One who acknowledges the courage required to risk the vulnerability of being "wrong" or appearing less skillful in front of peers.
  • One who is passionate about their subject and whose goal it is to infect others with their enthusiasm.
  • One who sets high goals and believes that everyone can be helped to reach them.

For more information about the Find Your Voice organization and applications for professional development workshops, visit their Web site at www.findyourvoice.us