Nederlands schijven en spreken; lezen en luisteren voor Nederlanders en anderstaligen - Rotterdam

💬 Do you feel like your English pronunciation is holding you back?

It could be that people misunderstand you because of how you pronounce a sound or stress a word. Or it could be that people understand most of what you're saying, but they find it tiring to keep up. Or maybe your accent is stigmatised, making you feel judged before you even finish speaking.

These are the kinds of issues I help people work through in accent coaching. I’m Tom, a native English speaker from the UK with a master's degree in Linguistics and 12 years of teaching experience. I offer one-to-one English accent coaching personalised for your needs and goals. I will help you correctly produce the sounds of English so that you can immediately start speaking with more clarity, confidence, and ease – and without stigma or embarrassment.

⭐ English Pronunciation and Accent Coaching / Training / Reduction with a Native Teacher

WHAT WILL I LEARN?
I will show you how to train your ear and build stronger connections between your mind and your speech muscles. You’ll start with controlled practice to master new sounds, then move into spontaneous speech so that these skills become part of your everyday speaking habits.

Great pronunciation is more than vowels and consonants – it’s also about fluency and expression. You’ll practise the “four Ps” of effective speaking: pauses, pitch, prominence and pace. Together, these will help you speak with clarity, confidence and impact.

We will 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!

⭐ Select between Accent Modification and British English Accent Coaching.

🌍 Accent Modification identifies and targets the issues that cause misunderstandings in your own specific natural accent. This varies depending on your accent.

For Dutch speakers, this usually includes:
• the consonants th, p, t, k, s, sh, r, and v
• the vowels in "strut" and "foot"
• making intonation less flat and more meaningful
• relearning the connections between sound and spelling – famously fiendish in English!

This course is for clients who who need precise training in a limited time. These clients aspire to be more understandable to the people around them and do not need to adopt a fully native accent.

💂 British English Accent Coaching is a step-by-step course that teaches you to sound like a British native speaker. It teaches all of the sounds that makes British English sound unique. This includes:

• shifting many vowels towards a more forward placement in the mouth
• adopting British intonation patterns for questions, lists and speeches
• and of course the distinct British "t" sound (Brits do love their tea, after all).

This course is for clients who have a talent for picking up sounds, pride themselves on sounding like fluent native speakers and have the time to invest in long-term training

WHAT MAKES YOUR LESSONS STAND OUT?
First, they’re accessible.

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 today about how languages are learned. I have a master's degree in Linguistics and use approaches grounded in modern research. These are proven to translate your effort into lasting progress.

WHO SIGNS UP FOR AN ENGLISH PRONUNCIATION COURSE?
Pronunciation training benefits professionals and enthusiasts from a variety of sectors. My clients include individuals from diverse backgrounds such as bankers, consultants, civil servants, creatives, therapists, lecturers, teachers, performers, estate agents, hosts, broadcasters, corporate trainers, small business owners and international executives.

Whether you're speaking English in everyday conversations, presentations, media, or whatever else you do, your voice is your choice.

ABOUT ME
My name’s Tom, and I’m an English teacher from southeast England, based 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, specialising in methods for teaching English pronunciation. 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 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. Let's chat!