I am convinced that finding a teacher like Tim is one of the luckiest things that can happen in life. I found Tim totally by chance in the internet and now almost regret that it didn’t happen earlier. I studied English in school, at university, and in graduate school. However, when it became necessary for me to pass the TOEFL, I discovered that my knowledge of English was simply catastrophically poor. For a few years, I took classes with native speakers of English, but I wasn’t sure if I would get a passing score on the TOEFL. And that’s what in fact happened, I didn’t get enough points to pass. And that’s when my luck changed and I discovered Tim. Tim’s enormous interest in helping me pass the TOEFL immediately convinced me my luck had changed. It was obvious that this was a person who loves  is completely dedicated to his work, that this was not a person for whom teaching was a hobby or a way to earn a bit of extra money on the side. In addition, it surprised me how quickly Tim identified not just my problems with the English language, but also the roots of these problems, which we began to work on solving. Tim’s high level of professionalism comes not only from his pedagogical talent, but also from his amazing level of knowledge of Russian, which allowed him to tell me almost any word I needed to say or how to express a thought in English by saying the appropriate Russian equivalent. Also, as a native speaker of English, he taught me how native speakers think and how they express their thoughts. Our classes were always very interesting. Tim always chose materials that were very interesting for me and were at the right level of difficulty. Tim’s level of erudition always struck me, he always had lots of information about whichever topic we spoke about. Of course, sometimes it was hard to study, because I only had two months to prepare for the TOEFL with Tim, and I needed to make a big improvement in that short time. But with people like Tim it is possible! Tim helped me to greatly increase my reading speed and significantly improve my vocabulary, and taught me to understand unknown vocabulary from context and sentence construction. After his explanations, even the most difficult aspects of grammar became understandable. I began to fluently read scientific texts, unadapted literature, and began to understand American English speech. Also, I feel much more confident when I write or speak in English. And most important of all, after such a short time studying with Tim, I passed the TOEFL and got a score that was higher than what I needed!

I started classes with Tim in October. Our goal was to pass the international exam IELTS with a score of 6. We met on Skype, which was very convenient. As for the structure of the classes, Tim had a special approach to each question I had, but the most important thing he did was help increase my vocabulary using several different methods, for example the reading of special books (but nothing like the ordinary ones used by most teachers), listening to English speech, and plus of course speaking with Tim himself. As soon as a problem or misunderstanding arose in our communication, it was easily solved- Tim’s Russian is excellent, he speaks quickly and without mistakes! Tim created a plan to prepare for the IELTS focusing on each subtest: speaking, reading, writing, and listening. Before Tim, I tried many different teachers, but finally stayed with our wonderful Tim. And my decision wasn’t a mistake- I was able to compare different teachers. It’s also worth noting that Tim made a special trip to Russia and, in addition to everything else he did for me, gave me face to face lessons. As a result, I got more than I expected- a solid 6.5 on the IELTS. It’s hard to express how happy I was, but none of it would have happened without Tim’s efforts!!!

I came to Tim with an intermediate level of English, even though my textbooks at university were marked “upper intermediate”. I’ve had classes with Tim so far for around two months. In that time, I have been able to significantly reduce the number of “ums” and “uhs” in my speech when I am trying to find the right word to say. I became interested in English, and what’s more important, I developed a taste for the language. For example, it’s no longer just uncomfortable, but also embarrassing, to constantly use the word “interesting” in all different situations. Overall, I can give my best recommendations for Skype classes with Tim. In any situation, he’s ready to satisfy your learning needs. He offers a flexible schedule, and the possibility to have classes any quiet place with WiFi. Complete satisfaction of stated goals, high quality classes.

I have studied with Tim for more than a year. In that time, my spoken and written English have both significantly improved (my current level is advanced). At first, Tim helped me with grammar, afterwards for some months we built vocabulary by using authentic news articles written in American English on many different themes, and right now I am working on a business course. Tim also helped me to significantly improve my pronunciation.

I took classes with Timothy from 2007 to 2008 in Moscow. These lessons contributed greatly to improvement of my English. He used various teaching techniques, which helped to enlarge my vocabulary and improve my grammar within a short period of time. His lessons were always very professional. He is also very sociable and reliable. It was always nice to talk to him on a variety of subjects. My husband, who at the time had an elementary level of English, has also engaged Timothy as an English teacher so he would be ready to attend university in New York City. The fact that Timothy speaks Russian fluently and that classes are held on-line provides by husband with a unique opportunity to learn English with a native speaker from home. Due to this reason he progressed very well in his English classes and was ready for university classes in New York.

I studied with Tim on Skype for several months and had only positive emotions. In fact, Tim has an individualized and very productive approach to teaching: in just a few lessons he was able to make me understand some elements of English grammar that I had not been able to grasp before- it turns out they were all pretty simple! The structure of the lessons was interesting: he helped to understand some rules of grammar, then we practiced them with real-life examples. Sometimes Tim found interesting equivalents in Russian. In addition, he immediately brought my attention to incorrect pronunciation or sentence construction and corrected it (he didn’t just mechanically correct it, but forced me to use the incorrectly pronounced word correctly in different sentences until the correct way of saying it was automatic). While he talked with me, he always found gaps in my knowledge and later made special lessons to fill the gaps. Also- and this was very important- he helped me to understand words and expressions I did not know from context and sentence construction. This made reading in English a lot easier. For the first time in my life, I didn’t look at my watch while studying with a tutor: the time flew by and sometimes one hour seemed quite short! And also, Tim really knows Russian well: he speaks and writes cleanly and correctly!

I took English classes with Tim to prepare for the Cambridge FCE. There were several things- all of equal importance- that I liked about studying with Tim. First, Tim was experienced, and based his teaching methods on scientific research. Second, he adapted his learning plan for me to fit in my very busy schedule of university studies in maths. Third, he kept me motivated, even when my load of coursework from university was quite heavy. So- on a very tight schedule, I was still able to succeed in passing all five FCE sub-tests- reading, listening, speaking, writing, and use of English. Thank you, Tim for helping me reach my goal!

I work at a leading international law firm. As you can guess, English (both general and legal) is quite important to me. Given the rule that you can never learn too much, I decided to take classes of English to further improve my language skills.

One colleague of mine recommended Tim as a tutor. The first important feature for me was that he was a native speaker. (I knew that this would provide me with a number of advantages, which a non-native speaker couldn’t give.) Also, during our classes I found out that Tim spoke Russian very well. That helped me to kill two birds with one stone- to learn the language from a native speaker and at the same time to clarify certain issues, which sometimes are difficult to explain to a foreigner who doesn’t know Russian.

I should also mention that Tim can teach a wide range of topics, like articles, verb tenses, and other grammar stuff, writing, speaking, etc. For me, personally, it was important to improve writing skills, and Tim helped me a lot. He explained and taught me to write like an English native speaker One such topic was articles. (Using articles correctly is very important for lawyers and also helps you sound more native.) I must underline that almost no one teaches this, and that Tim does it in very great detail. In addition, he let me know of typical mistakes made by Russians, that was very helpful as well.