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We understand that speaking can be the most difficult part of learning a new language. We aim to build your confidence gradually, so you are comfortable with the language and we’ll work at a pace where you are not afraid to make mistakes and are more willing to take risks. 

We believe we can best help students become fluent speakers of English through reading out loud, responding to questions and eventually speaking about your own ideas. It is simply much easier to hear yourself pronouncing a word wrong when you say it out loud because it ensures that you know how to pronounce the words you are reading. We’ll assist you with self-correction, so that when you are aware of the rules of English pronunciation, you’ll begin to realise when and how you have made a mistake and fix it. This is not just a great way for you to improve your spoken fluency; it is also a great way to improve your overall comprehension. We will tailor the learning style around you. Anytime that you can access more than one sense, you are more likely to retain the information you are consuming. Together we’ll create an atmosphere of reading and speaking that requires you to focus on every word. 

There are a number of different ways that we can have you read aloud to practice your proficiency with the language. We’ll combine modelling where we’ll read aloud to model pronunciation and fluency, so you can see how the piece should be read as you follow along. We’ll also partner up, so we share reading, each taking turns reading a certain amount of text out loud. We can also read a question and answer verbally, improving both your reading and speaking ability.

As you develop your understanding we’ll help you practice intonation, stressing the right syllables and delivering the lines the way they are meant to be delivered.  This is another indication of a growing understanding of the intricacies of the language since intonation is only implied and not explicitly detailed in a piece of writing.  Once you have been able to master speaking the language, you will be on your way to achieving fluency. 

Listening is important in learning a language because in most cases you are learning in order to communicate verbally. Helping you speak in English is great, but that will only help you in conversation unless you can also understand what others are saying.  Our aim is to help you, so as you become more comfortable with the language you’ll be able to take in what people are saying, process it, and respond appropriately. 

We will ease you into the English language by working with you, speaking at a pace that gives you the chance to learn and decode what we are trying to say.  Working with you we’ll help you begin to transcribe speech. We focus on word-for-word transcription, so you can practice with words rather than just sounds. We’ll have you listen to a person speaking and work with you to help you transcribe the speech, as it is spoken.  This way it gives our students practice by both listening and writing the language with the additional opportunities to fix any errors in their transcription and to display a growing knowledge of grammar.

We’ll help you to paraphrase, which is a great skill for you to practice and develop as it tests your ability to listen to someone speak, process the words, and then rewrite them in your own words.  In many ways, this task is much more challenging than transcription. We’ll support you in becoming conversationally fluent in English, including how to decode sounds, how to break down speech, and how to summarise ideas.  We understand too, that few people speak with perfect English. The immediacy of a conversation makes this one of the true tests of your developing fluency. We’ll help you with every day conversational English, that requires you to quickly comprehend what someone says, decide how to respond, and then determine how to respond in English.  These techniques are a great way for you to start mastering the sounds of English as you’ll need to be able to understand English only from sound. We’ll help you understand what people are saying as it directly prepares you for conversational English and the first steps towards being able to hold a conversation.