Travis James: From Speech Teacher to Bible Teacher
At the time that he opened New York Speech Consulting in lower Manhattan (SoHo), NYC, Travis was considering a variety of projects in his new start-up loft. He was teaching Off-Broadway actors and singers, and collectively teaching to non-actors including United Nations diplomats and Wall Street execs. While using his Acting degree from New York University, Tisch School in his entrepreneur endeavors where he then went on to pursue a Master’s degree at The New School. During this revolutionary time with artistic collaborators in the New York arts scene, Travis began teaching classes in English diction for the Russian Language Learning Center. His performance methods, made his classes highly interactive and movement based, where he started writing his “Accent Elimination” approach for Non-Actors. It was in this period of resurgence of his working in Manhattan which became the inspiration of The Nina Kurtian “Accent Elimination” project where his technique was featured from blending Psychology, Acting, Movement and Vocal pedagogy, and Phonetics in his unique approach. Travis began studying Opera where he sang is teachers Mark Oswald (Manhattan School of Music) and singing in concerts and churches in Los Angeles (Opera for Darfur) and invited to teach “Accent Elimination” in Los Angeles. Today he is in his 28th year and for the first time making these truly unique methods available to coaches, teachers, therapists and communication consultants worldwide and to the public. As both a entrepreneur, director and teacher, Travis learned first-hand the need and benefits of teaching alongside other trusted and like minded colleagues to make a collective teaching experience which was used during the renaissance period approaching arts, sciences and theatrical ensemble training making his technique truly an international style of language and communication for the world’s language community .
Discovering the ConversAid Method
So after his nearly 30 year journey, and creating Speak-Well.org for publishing the ConversAid Method materials. “we showed just how far communication training could go with speech development, especially when context and truth are found,” says Travis, now Director of the Accent Reduction Training Association. I was convinced that there was more than one field to use truth to enhance career development.” Travis recalls, “My realization was to include speech training in every client’s earliest career development. I got excited about this possibility and it also gave me the opportunity to make that dream a reality.”
A Call to Teach the World
While attending a seminar at The New School, Actor’s Studio, MFA in 1997, Travis took a seminar with Arthur Penn. Mr. Penn’s innovative directing methods inspired Travis where he focused on truth in acting in film and theatre shaping his actors roles and performances. Now as a student in seminary he studies and researches other teachers who found the truth of the gospel. Travis recalls, “About a year into my association with the Actor’s Studio, it seems my whole life had been focused on how important it was to find truth and I looked to acting and speech to consider how a student of acting learns to behave truthfully, rather than saying, this is how Jesus wants me to behave. I realized how my calling was actually to teach the truth of the bible and God sought me to teach His truth from His word found in scripture. That was it for me. I was eager to put my artistic training aside and to learn to teach His truth of which there is only one truth. Travis has since stepped down from is Director role at ARTA to teach full-time in his teaching ministry “The Cross Talk”, a podcast soon available nationwide and began a collaboration that culminated in the creation of the ConversAid materials for pastors in ministry and preaching techniques, now offered to the public in the fall of 2026.
From Entrepreneur to Bible Teacher
2018 – the birth of a movement. ARTA merged Speak-Well.org and the ConversAid Method and a program was born. Travis the teacher-turned entrepreneur now added bible teacher to his leadership role as he focused his efforts on expanding The Cross Talk teaching ministry. “I discovered that creating a class lecture has a lot of the same concepts with putting a bible lesson, that I’d been a evangelist all along.”
In the nearly ten years that have followed those first classes, ConversAid has grown to a nationally-taught in, nationally-acclaimed program that has reached thousands of clients in 36 states and foreign countries. Language teachers and coaches everywhere have integrated ConversAid and activities into their programs. Travis continues to train potential ARTA Certified Coaches, speech pathologists, language teachers, pastors, and international people in seminars held in all corners of the USA and on our website www.Speak-Well.org.
Travis James conceived, founded and developed the ConversAid program for the Accent Reduction Training Association powered by The ConversAid Method, which he founded in 1998. He has taught and coached numerous professional public speakers and is a regular contributor on the ConversAid blog. His “accent elimination” speech programs and teacher training has helped thousands of language learners nationwide. He is graduate of New York University, and studied acting and directing at The New School, Actors Studio MFA, and RTS, Charlotte, NC. He is happily married, and the father of three beautiful girls.
