Joanna - Gipsy Hill - ESOL (English)

On elocution:
I am a deputy head in a small school dealing with parents and teachers on a daily basis and I've always felt unconfortable during speaches due to my accent. Jo is very patient and has made my lessons interesting and fun. I was a bit worried when I started, but Jo was so encouraging and positive, she gave me the confidence to persevere. The lessons are a mixture of repetitive pronunciation work, reading together and acting out passages from plays and other texts. Thank you Jo!

On leading a choir:
Joanna managed to get a room full of busy people who didn't know each other singing close harmony jazz within an hour, and performing a concert after four or five sessions. She made it easy and was an excellent musical leader. I sing regularly in a number of choirs and was very impressed with the results she achieved despite the many obstacles of working in a hospital including one session which was accompanied by a fire alarm.

On Elocution: 'My son had elocution lessons with Jo as he had problems with articulation, a mixture of accent and bad habits. The lessons were fun, and well prepared and thought through, but more than that, my son has become able see all those other ways in which he could speak and I can now observe him switching between different modalities of language when he needs to. Nothing else could have done it for him; this is great!

On Elocution and Accent Reduction:
From my experience working with Joanna on my accent (my mother tongue is Hebrew), Joanna always came prepared to the lessons and on time, being very professional. For me it was important to record the lessons and Joanna kindly offered to do it for me. I still have the records and am listening to them every once in a while. I enjoyed and benefited studying with Joanna and would warmly recommend her services.

Jo is an amazing teacher! She gets to work straight away and made me feel very comfortable. She also allows you to record your lessons and made recordings of words I was unsure about. She listened to my concerns and made fantastic notes for me which were so easy to refer back to. Her tips are great and she explains everything very clearly. I am much more confident and feel I have achieved what I wanted so far. A big thank you for all your help, Jo!