On March 16, over 900 Elementary School Heads of the Iloilo Schools Division gathered at the Sarabia Manor Hotel for the 2016 Conference Training for Elementary School Heads. With the theme “Ignition for Greater Action,” the conference featured speakers who spoke various topics geared towards the holistic development of the academic heads in primary schools.

Pocholo “The VoiceMaster” Gonzales was the first speaker of the day, who energized the morning with a 2-hour workshop on the voice. With his talk entitled “Voice of the Teachers: Mastering Your Voice,” Pocholo taught the audience about the power of the voice, and its importance in the field of teaching. He started by sharing his story about how he started his career as a voice artist, which led to him being the most recognized and respected coach and trainer in the field of voice. He also talked a little bit about his advocacies on voice, particularly Voice Care for Teachers.
​
Pocholo gave the participants a glimpse of his Voice Care for Teachers program by doing a workshop during his talk. He started by discussing about the “Generation Z,” the young people who are dominating the classrooms of today. He described this generation of young people to give a better understanding of how to deal with them, especially in the classroom. He then went on to say that the VOICE is a teacher’s greatest tool in reaching out to these students, so they need to know how to use it effectively.

Pocholo centered his workshop around 2 important keys to mastering the voice – vocal power and vocal variety. Through various posture, breathing and vocal exercises, Pocholo taught the participants a handful of techniques that will not only make them effective speakers, but will also enable them to preserve and take care of their most valuable teaching tool.

On March 4th, over 500 teachers from all over Metro Manila and nearby provinces filled the Marikina Convention Center to participate on the first day of St. Matthew’s Publishing’s event, dubbed as “UnlockED 2016.” As a pioneer in the educational publishing industry for preschool and elementary school books in the Philippines, St. Matthew’s Publishing holds this annual event to unlock the potentials of the teachers as well as to maximize their skills as educators. With this year’s theme “Designing Dynamic Learning Environments,” the seminar featured speakers that teach the participants various ways to make learning fun through creativity.

Pocholo “The VoiceMaster” Gonzales was the last speaker, who spoke about one of his advocacies, VOICE CARE FOR TEACHERS. In his hour-and-a-half talk, he emphasized the importance of the voice as a teacher’s primary tool in carrying out their teaching vocation. Pocholo discussed the different factors that made teachers prone to voice problems, and gave tools, exercises and techniques that would help them prevent voice problems in the future with the proper production of the voice.

Another important part of Pocholo’s talk was about mastering the voice, and how teachers can consciously cultivate habits that will not only prevent them from developing voice problems, but also how they can use their voice effectively in teaching today’s youth – also known as the Generation Z – who easily get distracted and bored, and have a short attention span of 4-6 seconds. He also shared his knowledge in voice acting, which teachers can also utilize in the classroom to make their teaching fun, memorable and meaningful. The VoiceMaster proved how voice acting can make a huge difference in engaging learners, by showcasing his own voice acting prowess.

The Sales and Marketing team of Zoomanity Group from all over the country, including CEO's and COO's, gathered at the Misono Restaurant in Makati on February 17 for their Internal Marketing Summit. The event is a whole-day learning affair for the team, where they get to share ideas to help improve their team’s performance, and also gain knowledge and strategies outside of the theme park/zoo industry through invited guest speakers.

​Two speakers were invited to speak during the first half of the day. The first speaker was Carmie De Leon, Vice President for Sales and Marketing of Healthway Medical. Carmie shared her best sales and marketing practices even way back when she was starting as a Medical Representative. She spoke about how she has established relationships with her prospects and clients not only by building rapport, but also by being sensitive to their personal needs. She encouraged the participants to have the “store owner mindset,” where the sales person doesn’t just see himself as someone who sells the product, but rather, someone who is representative of the product and brand. Carmie’s unconventional yet sensible tips were truly useful for the participants of her talk, like forcing customers to complain about their service so they can further improve. Last but not the least, she shared wonderful insights from the health care industry that could very well be duplicated on their field (theme park).

After the talk and a long Q&A session with the participants, up next was Voice Care Philippines’ Executive Director Ada Cuaresma, and also one of the trainers of Pochology Academy. In Ada’s talk entitled “Pitch Perfect,” Ada conducted a mini-workshop to teach participants how to be more powerful in selling and marketing through speech and voice. According to her, the “what you say” (speech) and “how you say it” should go hand-in-hand in order to make sales pitches that sell. You cannot simply improve your pitch’s content without rehearsing your presentation, and vice versa. Ada gave the participants exercises on breathing, posture, pitch and volume. She introduced both the science and the art of voice by teaching participants how to develop their vocal power and variety.

​After lunch, the group did some brainstorming activities where they practiced what they have learned from the speakers in the morning.

November 17, 2014, the first-ever Voice Care for Teachers workshop was held at the Creativoices office in Makati. It was a free workshop in celebration of World Teacher’s Day. The workshop only had 3 participants, the first 3 Voice Care Ambassadors.

Fast forward to a year after, the Voice Care Philippines training team has travelled to various parts of the country to teach the Voice Care for Teachers workshop. From Luzon (Baguio, Pampanga, Tarlac, Bulacan, Bataan, Cavite), Visayas (Iloilo) and Mindanao (Bukidnon, Zamboanga), thousands of teachers have learned the science and art of voice, and how it can be applied to their vocation.

Voice Care for Teachers is the flagship training program of Voice Care Philippines, a training organization whose mission is to equip professional voice users with knowledge and tools to save their voice, save their career. The organization was founded by Pocholo “The VoiceMaster” Gonzales – veteran voice artist, experienced radio broadcaster, internationally-awarded youth advocate, author and highly sought-after motivational speaker and trainer. With an innate passion to teach and pay forward, Pocholo has high respect for teachers and recognizes the importance of their role in nation-building.

“When I started thinking about how I can be of service to teachers, I took 2 of the things that I do best – voice acting and motivational speaking – together and created a program called ‘Voice Acting for Effective Teaching’. The goal was to help teachers use voice acting techniques to capture and sustain their students’ attention, especially with the young people today having short attention span and access to more information than they know what to do with.”

Pocholo recalls how the program had a very short lifespan. “I only did the workshop ONCE, in March 2, 2013. After my talk, a teacher approached me and said (with a hoarse voice), ‘This is great, but how can I (teacher) use voice acting if I don’t even have voice to begin with?’ That question struck me, and I realized that more than being able to PLAY with their voice, teachers have a much bigger need to learn how to TAKE CARE of it. Right there and then, Voice Care Philippines was born.”

For the first time in his 15 years as a motivational speaker and trainer, Pocholo “The VoiceMaster” Gonzales comes back to his hometown in Mariveles, Bataan, to inspire and motivate his fellow Bataenos!

On November 13, 2015, hundreds of elementary teachers gathered in the covered court of Alasasin Elementary School as Pocholo and his team conducted a whole-day Voice Care for Teachers workshop. The program started with some opening remarks and introduction from one of Pocholo’s good friends in high school – now school principal – Elda Afable. She recounted her memories of the VoiceMaster back when they were students, and expressed her excitement to witness him become Bataan’s pride with all that he has accomplished. The VoiceMaster’s own father, Luis Gonzales, also took the stage to share his own introduction and remarks about his son.

After the opening ceremonies, Pocholo took the stage and delivered a motivational seminar entitled “Understanding the Generation Z.” He shared his knowledge and expertise in dealing with the youth, and inspired the teachers to be open and embracing of the new generation’s mindset and their need to be taught differently in the classroom. Pocholo also inspired the teachers to become an inspiration to their students, not by bombarding them with information, but by providing guidance and motivating their students to cultivate their talents and pursue their dreams.