Anglų kalba iš pirmų lūpų
Make the most of class time by speaking English with an experienced teacher from England. Spend your lesson time in a productive and pleasant manner! In return for your investment, you'll be exposed to authentic English materials, as well as published resources. Be corrected in a supportive manner so you can get feedback on your grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Learn in a friendly atmosphere to give you the confidence to make that presentation, take a scary exam, negotiate with foreigners, or just talk to that special person in English. Whatever your motivation for learning, I will do my best to help. Read some feedback from students.
The size of the group depends on the course, but you will always get personal attention. Location: Verkių g. 29H - 311, Ogmios miestas, Vilnius. Just a stone's throw from loads of shops and places to eat. Most importantly, there is an abundance of FREE PARKING. To reach us by public transport, you have various options. From Lukšio g. (Bus 30 or 33 to Šiaurės miestelis), from Žirmūnų g. (Trolleybus 12, 17, 20, 21 to Šiaurės miestelis + a short walk), Or from Kalvarijų g. (Bus 10, 34, 35, 36, or 53 or Trolleybus 6 or 10 to Tauragnų stop + a short walk). There are orange bike stands near Lukšio g. and Šiaurės miestelis Hyper Rimi. I can invoice you or your company. Advance payment by bank transfer is preferred.
Learning materials need to be interesting, engaging, and mirror the real world to help you save time and communicate more efficiently outside the classroom. I often create my own materials by adapting authentic sources, such as professional blog posts, brochures, company reports, newspapers, articles from 'The Economist', YouTube videos, etc. We will also use tried and tested activities written by professionals to practise those areas of English that often cause problems for Lithuanian learners. I've lived and worked here since 2003, and I am a life-long learner myself, so I have some idea of what you will probably find challenging.
With 20+ years' teaching experience, Hannah has taught in the Czech Republic, Estonia, and Lithuania. As a language learner herself, she understands the joys and frustrations of studying. Originally from England, she holds a Master's degree, as well as teaching certificates in teaching English to adults and Business English. Hannah's interests lie in language assessment and the acquisition of lexical chunks. As well as getting involved in various random English-related projects, she also dabbles in a bit of proofreading and voice recording. In her free time she enjoys music and capturing the moment with her phone camera.
Please visit the Course Timetable for all the latest information.
SMS +370 685 47780
Šeimos aikštė 8 - 311
Ogmios miestas, LT-09132, Vilnius
GPS: 54.712920, 25.298229
54°42'46.5"N 25°17'53.6"E
If you want to brush up your English and learn from an experienced teacher from England, you've come to the right place!
- English is my mother tongue. I’m a life-long learner with an interest in languages
- Experience: 19 years 'under my belt' (I've been based in Lithuania since 2003 and the Baltics since 2001)
- Qualifications: MA / Cambridge CELTA / London Chamber of Commerce & Industry Certificate in Teaching Business English
- Self-employed status (I also teach at Vilnius University)
- Use my voice for your audio materials or advert
- Small groups and a friendly classroom atmosphere
- Improve your confidence, vocabulary, grammatical structures, and language skills to communicate more effectively
- FREE PARKING in Ogmios miestas (as soon as it is healthy for us to return to face-to-face training)
- NEW for the COVID-19 self-isolation period - study "live" in my virtual classroom on Zoom
- Category:
- Language
- Published:
- 09 January 2018
User Rating: 5 / 5
I have decided to blog once in a while about topics inspired by conversations with my students. So here goes...RP and Standard English. These two are not the same thing.
RP means Received Pronunciation. These extracts have been taken from the excellent British Library website.RP is a young accent in linguistic terms. It was not around, for example, when Dr Johnson wrote A Dictionary of the English Language in 1757. He chose not to include pronunciation suggestions as he felt there was little agreement even within educated society regarding ‘recommended’ forms. The phrase Received Pronunciation was coined in 1869 by the linguist, A J Ellis, but it only became a widely used term used to describe the accent of the social elite after the phonetician, Daniel Jones, adopted it for the second edition of the English Pronouncing Dictionary (1924). (British Library)
"All RP speakers speak Standard English. In other words, they avoid non-standard grammatical constructions and localised vocabulary characteristic of regional dialects. RP is also regionally non-specific, that is it does not contain any clues about a speaker’s geographic background. But it does reveal a great deal about their social and/or educational background."RP was taught at public schools (private fee-paying boarding schools, such as Eton and Harrow), and OxBridge (Oxford and Cambridge Universities); therefore, it became associated with 'The Establishment' - those in power. If you wanted to get on in life, you needed to speak with an RP accent. The BBC did not allow regional accents (apart from in one notable exception - story to follow in another post). Now this policy has changed, and you can currently hear many different accents on the BBC. BTW, what frequency is the BBC WorldService on the radio in Vilnius?
So all RP speakers speak Standard English, but this is not necessarily true the other way round. I speak Standard English but not with an RP accent. I can switch between various forms of English. I could feign that I speak RP for about half an hour before I would let it slip that really I am a Northerner!
So I speak with a modified regional accent that would indicate to a native Brit that I am from the North of England. Unlike my mother, who is a Southerner (she can't help it!), I pronounce the 'a' in 'castle' in the same way as I would pronounce the word 'cat'. For my mum, it's 'ca(r)stle' - a longer vowel /a:/. This is just one example of a deviance from RP. I am happy that the way I speak is part of my identity.
Most educated people can happily switch between Standard forms of English (at work) and then revert to their less formal choice of words with their family and friends. In my classroom, I use and teach Standard forms of the language. However, on my private Facebook wall, I wish to express myself and not limit my identity; language serves as a means to express myself, and yes - for me, this means through non-Standard forms (or playing with language).
If I wrote an essay for an exam, or applied for a job, of course, I would have to use Standard English to be taken seriously.
Nowadays, I would argue that to be taken seriously, you are better off not speaking pure Conservative RP. There are numerous examples of how people in power have modified their accent to be more acceptable or fit in with the local electorate. Even The Queen has changed her voice. Change is natural (cue a debate about Lithuanian and her guardians...). Listen to the Queen's first Christmas Speech from 1957. She sounds rather amusing in places as her speech sounds dated. It is possible to track how her accent as changed as her Christmas Speech is broadcast every year at 3pm on Christmas Day.
Indeed many commentators even suggest that younger RP speakers often go to great lengths to disguise their middle-class accent by incorporating regional features into their speech.
You should be familiar with RP in order to read the pronunciation supplied in any good dictionary.
"As well as being a living accent, RP is also a theoretical linguistic concept. It is the accent on which phonemic transcriptions in dictionaries are based". (British Library)
This is not the only way the word will be pronounced, however. Part of my job as a teacher is to show you that most people you meet in the real world will not speak RP and may not even use Standard English when you meet them. As listeners, you should be prepared for this. Sometimes RP can sound antiquated and ridiculous. Modified versions of it are easy to understand and serve as a good model. In my classroom, you will be exposed to Standard English spoken with a northern accent.
Hopefully, accent prejudice will die. For now, it is very much alive as we judge people as being "too posh" or "uneducated" the moment they open their mouths. Accents are also related to the class system, which we will have to save for another day!
Sources:
The British Library website: http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/sounds/case-studies/received-pronunciation/
Professor Peter Trudgill estimated that only 3% of the population of GB speak RP. http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/estuary/trudgill.htm
Jack Windsor Lewis criticising the 3'% figure. http://www.yek.me.uk/archive45.html#blog443
David Robson on the Queen modifying her accent http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160202-has-the-queen-become-frightfully-common
Erica Buist on Riot Club and 'posh' speak https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/video/2014/sep/22/secrets-posh-accent-video-riot-club-vowels
Queen Elizabeth II back in 1957 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBRP-o6Q85s&list=PLC375B13D374469C5
Stan Carey on accents for the Macmillan Dictionary Blog http://www.macmillandictionaryblog.com/rp-and-dortspeak
Cartoon by PUGH (Daily Mail) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2302972/One-people-change-accent-sound-posh-job-chat-survey-finds.html
Listen to the BBC WorldService online or on your radio (remember those?!). The frequency in Vilnius is 99.5 FM.
If you found anything interesting here, please spread the word by liking or sharing this article on social media. I'd really appreciate it.
UPDATE: Watch this! Hugh Dellar speaks sense!!
Hannah Shipman
Teacher, Trainer, Lecturer, Voice Artist, Life-long learner, Materials Writer, Language Assessor, ProofreaderGet in touch today to let me know what you need to do in English, and how I can help you to do it more fluently, accurately, and efficiently.
As you can see, I am involved in any kind of project connected to improving the level of English here in Lithuania.
How can EnglishTeacher.lt help you?
I'd like to improve my spoken English
All of my classes are hands-on. You will be given plenty of chance to speak in pairs, small groups, as well as with me. To improve your speaking, it is not rocket science to point out that you need to have a chance to speak!
I've got loads of questions!
Great, please ask away! I might not always be able to answer, but I'll do my best to find the answer. Language is not static; it's organic and always changing, which is why it is so exciting. There are also lots of 'Englishes'. I will happily answer your questions about British English and culture.
I know my vocabulary is weak
During our lessons, I will expose you to a lot of new vocabulary, either through exploiting listening or reading texts or while talking to each other. I'll try and point out patterns and make sure you know how to use the new chunks or expressions. You should prioritise about 6 word partnerships to use out of class in your daily life. We'll do some activities or play revision games to recycle the expressions and help you to remember them.
Tenses - they're so difficult!
Sometimes it is clear which tense you should use. The fun starts at higher levels when we analyse why one tense is more suitable than another, which inevitably involves all the interesting nuances of language. What hidden information do we convey when we choose one tense over another?
I would like to understand more TV programmes and music
Fantastic. It means you are already interested in the cultural aspects of learning a language. I'll share with you the programmes I think you will enjoy watching and some useful podcasts. The first step is motivation, so it sounds as if you are in the right frame of mind to learn.
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Books by Tim Shipman
If you are interested in politics, Britain, Brexit, and modern history, you might appreciate these books. They just happen to have been written by my brother! These are links to the Kindle version available on Amazon.
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