How Non-Native Journalists Gain Editors’ Trust: Three Grammar Learning Principles to Write Accurately in English (Without Taking Traditional Grammar Classes)

To all of you, journalists, being obsessed with improving your English writing skills, I can only recommend "my" 🙂 English linguist teacher Pete Pozner as his help went beyond my expectations. From the start, you will notice he listens to his students' needs very well and will structure a personalized offer that suits your goals. Accurate, constant, complete support from a 5* linguist who understands the journalistic challenges in focus, length, and style. It was a great way to start this year with these well-organized training sessions. The one-to-one lesson content was great; the assignments require some personal investment (dedication and time management) to achieve your goals, which is quite obvious. Nothing comes up by magic, so it is a real investment in yourself and your own personal development. Therefore, the more time you dedicate to it and the more you will see the results quickly. Videos as lesson support before starting the exercises were great. They helped me focus on my task, and a Quiz at the end of the training program was also useful to check if my level had improved throughout the lessons. Thanks for your help and tips to keep improving, Pete. They are priceless.

As a teacher of English as a foreign language, Pete Pozner can cope with challenges, even in a virtual mode. Because he speaks so many different languages (Spanish, French and Germany mainly), he truly understands the main difficulties non-native speakers have and how to deal with them. He also has a good knowledge of the journalist’s needs and adapts his classes to maximize results. He gives powerful tips and resources that can (and must!) be used after his classes.

Pete is a dedicated teacher who knows how to help non-native journalists with English communication skills. His programme shows journalists how to write better stories in English, and how to present them in podcasting and broadcasting. During (and after) the course, Pete was always available and eager to help. I especially appreciated his feedback - it was always constructive.

Given that I’m going to attend a Master of Arts at Columbia Journalism School in New York, and given that I’m a foreign journalist coming from Italy, I felt very anxious before my departure for New York thinking about journalistic English.

When I contacted Pete, he suggested I do an 8-week course entirely based on my needs and vulnerabilities in writing. At the end of it today, I am fully satisfied with what I have learnt and with the new method I have acquired thanks to Pete.

Through engaging live video lessons and useful homework, exercises and quizzes, Pete helped me to understand how not to repeat my main writing mistakes, using proper punctuation, learning new idioms and collocations, and enriching my vocabulary with new phrasal verbs. Above all, I finally had a deep understanding of the correct use of tenses in journalistic English writing.

Pete gave me the courage to break the ice in writing weekly articles, which he then revised helping me not to fall again into my usual errors.
I can say now I can count on a new highly trusted English teacher, whom I can rely on whenever I’ll be in need during my studying at Columbia and my future career.
I recommend a course with Pete to all those foreign journalists like me who might have a bit of frustration before moving abroad in an English speaking country.

Signing up for this course was one of the best decisions I have made in years. Pete is an experienced, engaging and non-judgmental teacher that has developed an interesting method to help non-native speakers improve the use of English in their journalism. Assessment of what you need is dynamic, and after every session I felt that we had tackled, and at times even fixed, this or that deficiency. I’m a mid-career investigative journalist, fluent in speaking and a contributor to English publications. And yet, my writing can surely be improved. I was very satisfied and felt empowered by this course. Pete is responsive and reliable, and the module comes with exercises to do before and after the one-on-one
meetings. His tailor-made training was a perfect fit to my needs, and its design allowed me to squeeze some hours of exercises into most of my otherwise busy weeks. Added value: the course comes with a methodology that you can apply to continue the learning process on your own. I already signed up for a follow-up module.

This course has helped me to improve my writing skills and my writing style. I was not sure how to use phrasal verbs or more elaborated structures, but now I feel more confident about it. After the course with Pete, I am no longer afraid of writing in English.

My goals were not that clear when I started. I was not planning to write in English, and I do not use it on a daily basis. However, I think I could now deal with writing challenges that I wasn't able to cope with before.

Pete is sympathetic and cares about the work you do during the course. He is always willing to help. Also, I really liked that he adapted the course content to the topics I normally write about. If you are looking to improve your English as a journalist, I could not recommend it more!

For a very long time, I have been looking for an English course like Pete’s.

I had wasted money and time trying to improve my English with the traditional methods with no success.

As a result, I was often very disappointed with myself and couldn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel for my career.

After achieving a basic English level, we journalists don’t find the right course in the traditional English schools.

As a Brazilian journalist my English probably won’t be perfect, but I still need to get my message across clearly, accurately and elegantly.

After these ten weeks, I feel more confident to produce quality content and definitely feel able to advance my career in the direction I’ve always wished: working for an international audience.

I highly recommend Pete Pozner’s program for international journalists wishing to work in English.

He is a serious teacher committed to the development of his students. He will teach you strategies to keep going independently and be able to resolve your own doubts when writing about complex topics to a deadline.

But be ready for hard work. Pete is going to hold you accountable in completing tasks so that you meet your goals.

THE PROGRAM WAS ONE OF THE BEST INVESTMENTS FOR MY CAREER IN THE RECENT YEARS. I have done many English courses before but I had never felt confident enough, there were many unnecessary or boring classes and I always felt that something was missing, but this program is the opposite. It really helped me take my English skills to the next level and feel confident writing professionally in English. In fact, I was able to build a solid portfolio with a diverse range of articles, from news and profiles to creative writing texts. In short, the cost-benefit of the course is excellent.

The course was personalized one-on-one tutoring according to my needs and very focused on journalistic and professional writing skills. I felt that I was not wasting my time; each class was precise and fundamental. In addition to the large amount of material (videos, resources, texts, etc.) that Pete provided me, he was always open to reviewing my texts and correcting them together, which really helped me improve. In addition, in the end, all the strategies allowed me to become a more independent learner to continue learning and improving without always depending on a course or a teacher.

I strongly recommend this course if you are looking to change your writing career to English.