Luke
Nicholson (picture left) is an experienced accent coach qualified by the
International Phonetic Association and a member of both the Voice and Speech
Trainers Association and the DialectCoaches Agency. Besides holding an IPA
certificate, he has a BA in German Studies and Italian Studies from the
University of Birmingham and an MA in Acting – Distinction in Voice and in
Articulation. He has taught English pronunciation to people from over 65
different countries, including Bahrain, Ethiopia, Holland, Iran, Italy,
Malaysia, Russia, Serbia, Thailand, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
He recently
launched an online British English pronunciation course which includes in-depth
information on the vowel and consonant sounds of English as well as the main features
of connected speech, stress, rhythm, intonation and voice quality. You can take
a look at the contents page here. The course is just excellent and a wonderful
resource for anyone with an intermediate/advanced level of English who’s interested
in improving their pronunciation as well as their listening skills.
The course
starts with six introductory lessons. After completing them, you’re immediately
directed to the language guides section of the course, where you can choose
your native language and study the sounds that will make the biggest
differences to your accent.
What is so
helpful about this course is that it also contains numerous relevant links to
native speakers to listen to, as well as suggestions of TV shows and films to watch.
Additionally, the learner has clear guidance about how to practise, how to know
if they’re making a sound accurately, and how to incorporate new sounds into
everyday speech. Here’s one of the videos from the course about the schwa
vowel.
Luke is also
the author of two carefully planned and extremely useful freely available sound
charts: the consonants chart and the vowels chart of Standard Southern British
English (= General British). These are clickable charts which enable you to
listen to recordings of the sounds of English as spoken by the author himself. At
the bottom of the charts one finds questions about phonetic symbols and the
realization of certain sounds to which detailed answers are provided which the
reader will find extremely useful. Another highly recommendable resource for
students (and teachers!) of British English pronunciation.
Congratulations,
Luke!
