💬 A customised English pronunciation training course with a dedicated native-speaking coach will enhance your communication skills, boost your confidence, and ensure you can be easily understood in English conversations, presentations and meetings.
WHAT WILL I LEARN?
🗣️ Pronunciation for Public Speaking and Conversation is a course that identifies and resolves the issues that make people struggle to understand you. Common issues include:
• speaking too fast or slow
• having a confusing or flat intonation
• missing or overemphasising weak sounds
• stressing the wrong parts of words or sentences
• not linking sounds together
• talking with a rhythm that isn't natural to English
We will use a mix of techniques from shadowing and repetition exercises to dramatic readings and real-time speaking practice. We will also use specialist software called Praat so that you can visualise your speech, hear yourself back and make immediate changes to your pronunciation. It's highly effective and pretty fun too!
Our goal: make your speech clearer, more expressive, more enjoyable to listen to and easier to follow.
WHAT MAKES YOUR LESSONS STAND OUT?
First, they’re accessible. In this industry, professional pronunciation training sessions are often priced at €100 an hour or more. That model leaves many people without support. I believe quality teaching shouldn’t be a luxury.
Second, they’re personal. Too many pronunciation courses recycle the same generic materials for everyone. I design each lesson around your needs and issues so the time you spend actually moves you forward.
Finally, they’re research-based. A lot of pronunciation teaching still relies on outdated methods that don’t reflect what we know about how languages are learned. I use approaches grounded in linguistics and pedagogy, so your effort translates into lasting progress.
WHO SIGNS UP FOR AN ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION COURSE?
The Pronunciation for Public Speaking and Conversation course is ideal for people who engage in presentations, lectures, speeches or moderating, or simply for people who want to be more confident in everyday conversation.
Pronunciation training benefits professionals from a variety of sectors. My clients include consultants, creatives, therapists, lecturers, teachers, performers, bankers, estate agents, hosts, broadcasters, corporate trainers, small business owners, international executives, and facilitators.
⭐ If you are looking for a more comprehensive pronunciation coaching that goes into all the sounds of your accent, please check out my other course on Apprentus, "English Pronunciation and Accent Coaching / Training with a Native Teacher".
ABOUT ME
My name’s Tom and I’m an English teacher from Southeast England. Now I live in the Hague, Netherlands. I teach English learners how to communicate more clearly.
I have taught for various schools and agencies in the Netherlands and been frustrated by the lack of high-quality materials and expertise in the pronunciation teaching field. So in 2021 I set up my freelance teaching business to change the situation.
I have over 12 years of teaching experience, and I have a master's degree in Linguistics from Leiden University, with a specialisation in English Linguistics. I am trained in speech analysis software, which is a highly effective (and fun!) tool that helps learners not only hear but also visualise their mistakes.
I speak Finnish (my mum's side is from Finland), Mandarin Chinese (I lived in Taiwan for six years) and French (because I love the sound of it). I also know smatterings of other languages like Dutch, Spanish and Japanese. I am also an English language nerd and will happily talk your head off about why British people say "wa'er", what “muscles” have to do with mice, or why English spelling is so beautifully bizarre.