Hello, I am a CELTA qualified British English Accent coach with a First Class Honours Degree in Modern Languages and many years experience teaching both Received Pronunciation (Oxford English) and Modern Southern Standard British. My students come from all over the world and I am thrilled with the freedom and expanding possibilities online coaching offers both students and teachers.

About Me

Online teaching through Zoom or Skype is brilliant for accent reduction and pronunciation lessons! So, if you are finding you lack confidence in your English speaking skills, worry about your accent or keep needing to repeat yourself, now is an ideal time to seek professional help - tailored specially for you - towards a clearer, easily understood Standard Southern British accent or conventional Received Pronunciation. Once you find yourself speaking with assurance and confidence, you will quickly come across as the person you really are. 

As a CELTA qualified, English and foreign language teacher and accent coach with many years experience, I offer one to one private tuition - online these days - from my dedicated teaching room in the heart of London. 

I also offer editing of presentations, dissertations, articles etc and targeted tuition for the IELTS exams, specialising in writing tasks 1 and 2 (General or Academic) as well as the speaking component. 

My methods are right up to date. In addition to helping with general English, I install a sure knowledge of the 45 different sounds of English – that’s right 45 – and, where helpful, their various phonetic symbols. (There are only 26 alphabet letters, by the way!) At the same time, I use short videos and transcriptions, advertisements, story telling, humour, games, diagrams, muscle exercises, texts, poetry, conversations and dialogues to practise the melody and stress of British English and make sure you acquire excellent presentation skills. 

The very first lesson will acquaint you with the 45th sound, the schwa /ə/, the most common vowel sound in British English but one that in the past has all too often been neglected. From there you will learn how to stress and destress words in sentence chunks, how to modulate the pitch of your voice, how to convey extra meaning simply by altering your intonation. Ear training is very important and listening skills are given as much attention as speaking through use of games and audio texts. 

For any of you particularly anxious to improve your general English skills, I aim to teach these as needed through the medium of pronunciation lessons. 

One of my students was with me for four years. Not a very good advertisement for rapid progress, you might say, but I think she just enjoyed coming – those were the days before lockdown – and, from being a simple university student, she now holds down an excellent job where she is regularly called upon to speak in public. 

I am very generous with my time but, though my basic rate is £70 an hour, I strongly advise taking a 90+ minute session for £85. I have found this represents by far the best value for money without demanding too long a concentration span. I also cannot stress highly enough how important it is for you to be willing to put in the extra regular work on your own at home. Handouts and audio material are regularly supplied - these days as email attachments. 

Still not convinced? Send me an email preferably stating your first language and a few details about yourself and what you wish to achieve or give me a ring (remembering to leave your number in your message please) and we can discuss your needs on the phone or over Zoom. I have taught all sorts of people and all sorts of nationalities privately and in language schools for many years and am confident that even one pronunciation session can be of benefit. I would add, too, that I have found online to be a brilliant way of improving your accent wherever you come from. Three of my more distant students take or took lessons from as far away as Taiwan, Japan and Australia. 
 

Services

I offer coaching over Zoom  in Standard Southern British English and Received Pronuciation, using games, videos, texts and dialogues. There is no set course, though my lessons follow a general pattern, as I tailor each lesson to the needs - percieved and actual- of each individual student.

I also offer help with the writing and speaking component of IELTS