English Tutoring Testimonials from Bay Area Families

“Hello Nat,
I am writing this email to thank you for helping me improve my English and develop better writing and grammar skills. Thanks to your boot camp class, I have improved my score on the SAT to 1540, with a 740 in English (50 more than the previous attempt). Thank you so much for your help with my reading and writing skills, and I do believe that this program is amazing at helping high schoolers develop said skills. I use the techniques in my English essays on an everyday basis.
Thanks”

“We write to you to express our appreciation to Ms. Sichi’s for her teaching our daughter, and for IYE for providing such a wonderful program. Today, our daughter wrote to you about her achievement on SAT and PSAT tests. She obtained a perfect score of 1600 on SAT, and an excellent score 1510 on PSAT (missed one question) in October, 2021. She told us that Ms. Sichi’s instruction and mentoring in literature helped build a foundation for such scores in reading and writing on SAT and PSAT. Ms. Sichi and IYE have greatly contributed to her reading ability, knowledge learning, growth through reading literature, and achievement in her course study and standard tests such as SAT and PSAT. We are very grateful.”

“We really appreciate your work with our son this past year — he has benefited from lessons with you by broadening his vocabulary, deepening his understanding of the English language, and strengthening his reading comprehension and writing. All very helpful as he moves forward in high school!”

“With much appreciation and gratefulness, I have to tell you that our son has to finish his English Tutoring class with Mr. Logan due to his senior year’s super busy schedule! Mr. Logan is an outstanding teacher for our son, it is a hard decision for us to make!

I really like to thank Mr Logan, with your help and teaching and encouraging, our son has improved a lot on his reading, writing and grammar, you have made great impact on his journey in learning English which will last all his life! We are so grateful to have you teaching him! Even I didn’t get much time to talk with you, but I can feel your heart to teach our son and help him!

I would like to thank Mr. Crawford for your great SAT class too, it was amazing your class helped our son improving his SAT dramatically, and even your tips for sleeping and breakfast. All these little but important tips really helped him to have a good habit of learning and life, we totally appreciate it! Your commitment and high responsibility really impressed me even though it was a short class!

We will always remember all the great jobs you all have done to help our son, it has been a wonderful experience for us! IYE is definitely a great place for students want to improve their English and have a life long great impact!”

“We would like to express our appreciation to Dr. Wilson and your IYE for the past 4 years. Our son has benefited tremendously from the tutoring by Dr. Wilson, not only in terms of academic improvement but his personal growth of maturity and good characters. He has developed strong writing skills and improved grammar and vocabulary. We feel lucky that he has enrolled in IYE curriculum in the past 4 years and we are sure he will cherish this experience for the rest of his life.”

“We are very appreciative of the teachers who helped my son with a lot of English skills these years. Improve English is a professional agent and the teachers are very responsible for the student. I will recommend it if any of my friends need it.

Thank you!”

“I’m reaching out to let you know that I got a 5 on the AP Language And Composition Test! 🙂

When I started my junior year, I was intimidated by my AP Language and Composition class. I kept thinking that my writing skills weren’t good enough for me to succeed in a college writing class as a high school student. It was with your thoughtful insight and passion for writing that you were able to help me strengthen my writing and reading skills and guide me to truly appreciate writing.

Thank you for teaching me various rhetorical skills that allowed me to understand the power of writing! Thank you once again for guiding me to become a better writer by assigning me challenging writing assignments and working with me on numerous essay revisions! I definitely wouldn’t have gotten a 5 on the test without your help! 🙂

I’m looking forward to bringing the writing and English language skills I learned with you to my Story and Style English class this year so I can become a better writer and thinker.”

“I just wanted to tell you how helpful you were with my slideshow. I really appreciated it. After our most recent lesson, I worked on the slide a lot in order to incorporate the ideas you taught me. We finally presented it to the class, and our grades were 109% for our slideshow, and a 112% for our project. The teacher liked our slide because of the things you told me. she said my group’s (my…) analysis was really strong. The idea of embers being covered with ash, the trochaic and iambic rhythm, etc. Thank you so, so much!”

“My daughter had Nat as a one-on-one tutor for about three years and we would highly recommend Improve Your English services! Over the years, not only did Nat help my daughter improve her SAT score, but he also helped improve her reading comprehension and analysis abilities in general. Throughout classes, my daughter told me that Nat helped explain concepts extremely clearly, but also pushed her to understand concepts on her own when he thought she could. I am very grateful for the tutoring my daughter has received, as I am sure she will use these skills in high school, college, and beyond.”

“I wish we had found IYE when our daughter was in lower grades and had started enrolling in the program much earlier. Your program is well thought and planned. I think students would benefit by enrolling in the program earlier on. I would definitely recommend to my friends who are interested in enrolling their kids in a great English class.”

“Dear Dr. Julie,
It’s been a pleasure to have you as my son’s English tutor for the past years. We can see his English skills have been improved a lot and you/IYE have made a good English foundation for his HS studies.
We just want to say Thank you to you and IYE and appreciate all your time of coaching to my son. All the best to you!”

“My son has been working with David for about a month. I can really see the difference in his writing. It has more focus and better organization. My son says he is glad that he is taking the tutoring sessions. He feels that the lessons cover valuable skills.”

“I took the test once and scored 720 on the Reading section. When I took the test for a second time, I could tell that the classes had really helped my reading comprehension, even before I received my score. When I got my score, I improved 40 points, from 720 to 760. My family is very happy with the Improve Your English SAT training program!”

“Summer program advising helped me make my own decision. In the past, I was indecisive and let others make decisions for me. Now that I am in HS, I know I have to choose my path, not just let my parents choose it for me. Improve Your English College Counseling is helping me make those decisions for myself.”

“We are very appreciative of your kindness, patience, willingness to listen, and sharing of insights. You give me honest feedback, telling us mistakes to avoid. You listen to our concerns. You don’t take things personally. I really like this kind of interactive, honest, respectful, open dialogue. We really like you. We can build up mutual trust and understanding. We hope you will help our son through the process. For me it is stressful. One of the most important things is trust and I feel we are getting it here. Sometimes I say things that I am uncertain about, and then you talk to me and explain how things really are. This level of trust in a relationship is very important to me.”

“My daughter took her SAT again in March. She got her score back today. She
got 1540=770+770. This compared to her score before the SAT class with
you, of last August, 1480=700 (reading/writing) + 780 (math).

So, she got 70 points up for reading/writing, compared to your title
claim of 80 points up 🙂

Me: ‘So, the English SAT prep helped? Or you just get better?’
My daughter: ‘The prep helped!’

Thought you would want to know.”

“I took several reading classes first semester of college, and I had a great time. I frequently find myself using some of the techniques you taught me: mostly trying to draw a picture of what is actually going on, and imagining what the author is really saying using visuals. This technique forces me to pay attention and not mindlessly ‘read’. I think one of the most important things I remember you teaching me was the day before the SAT, you encouraged me keep my self criticism at bay while learning. I was lucky to hear that advice from you at a young age.”

“Our daughter got straight A’s in English, Art History and World History in her first semester at U.C. Riverside. She has been helping other students with their essays and says that the time she spent with Improve Your English tutors has made all the difference.”

“The tutors at Improve Your English helped my son get admitted to Berkeley. By sharpening his writing skills and learning to develop a persuasive application essay, he presented himself in the strongest possible light to the admissions officers. My wife and I couldn’t be happier with Improve Your English.”

“A bit late, but ever so sincere, Happy Thanksgiving; thank you for being my English helper and role model for study habits, proper grammar, and for helping me understand what really matters in life. Some of our discussions have transcended every day grammar, punctuation, essentially English talk, and have included topics about music, life, and stuff outside the general “be a good kid and get good grades” topics. So, thank you for that. You have opened my eyes with some of our philosophical discussions and analysis of Literature. Literature harbors the greatest goldmine for human understanding – that and music, of course; you have shown me knowledge in both.”

“Just wanted to tell you that the Scholastic Awards results came out and that I received two gold keys (Coffee Stains on a Blue Morning, (anchors) ), a silver key (Fleeting Everlasting), and an honorable mention (An Hour at the Happiest Place on Earth). These four pieces are all ones you’ve worked with me on, and I sincerely believe I owe it all to you. Without your insightful advice and direction, these awards would never have been possible. Thank you so much for all of your wonderful support and guidance in my creative writing endeavors, and I really hope I can work with you again in the future (as soon as my extracurricular schedule calms down).”

“My son has been working with Dr. Wilson for two years. He and I are both so happy and really appreciate Dr. Wilson’s great skill working with teenagers, vast knowledge, and sense of humor. My son recently took the SSAT. He scored in the 98th percentile on reading and the 94th percentile on verbal. Other than boosting his scores, the biggest help from Dr. Wilson was teaching my son writing. The SSAT writing is not scored and not yet commonly practiced in middle school. I saw my son’s writing improve from zero knowledge to being comfortable with any topic on SSAT writing test. Thank you so much, Dr. Wilson and Improve Your English!”

“I owe Improve Your English some big thanks. My teacher told me that he’s given a particular grammar test – the same test – for the last 10 years. During those years, only 7 people have scored 100%. I am one of those 7 people.”

“I want to thank you for being such a wonderful English tutor. When I first came to you, I knew almost nothing about grammar and reading. However, after the past two years with you, my skills in writing and critical reading have improved drastically. You taught me how to truly read a book through analyzing and connecting words rather than simply skimming over them. You have truly made a lasting impression on me because you have taught me skills that I will be able to implement for the rest of my life.”

“I have noticed my son’s progress and motivation. His writing has improved a lot (writing was very difficult for him when we met at the first class). Now, most of time, he finishes his homework with little reminding. He likes the way you teach. Thank you very much for your hard work!”

“I really appreciate all your hard work with our daughter. We have been trying for years to get her to stay focused. I think she is slowly maturing. And with your steady hand, she has made very good progress, and hopefully she can continue to improve. She responds to you well. I think your understanding, your friendliness as well as your stern and clear expectation make her realized that she must perform. She said that your drilling on the outline made her thinking about it almost automatically now. This is amazing… ”

“As someone who hates standardized testing, I had always thought of the SAT as a pain, a weary obstacle that had to be scaled because there exists a vague thing called “college.” But as I prepped for the SAT at Improve Your English, I realized that there was something big, something monumental, occurring in my education.
I had always been a “reader,” at least by the strict definition of the word. Piling books higher and higher, I had viewed journeys through literature in a purely quantitative sense. I would happily finish a volume and check off another “important” book read. More pages, more miles—this is what reading is all about, right?
But during my test prep, I finally learned to read in the imaginative sense. To borrow a Shakespearean phrase, I learned to read with my mind’s eye. Every word, every description became a world inside my head. Truly, learning to read and absorb literature in such a manner has fundamentally changed my ways as a student. The text, previously black and white upon printed paper, leapt outwards into my reality.
So for me, SAT test prep wasn’t so much a tool for success on the SAT, but a transformation in the way I understood the English language.”

“I participated in your spring 2013 SAT English class. Although I didn’t take the SAT (I took the ACT instead), I wanted to let you know that I scored a 36 on the English section, a 34 on the reading section (I only missed one question, but the curve was tough… *:( sad ), and a 34 on the writing section. I owe my high scores to you and Improve Your English. Thank you so much for everything.”

“SAT results came in this morning. Our daughter did well on both reading and writing section. We believe that her Saturday English tutoring and summer SAT review was really helpful in this endeavor. So – a big thanks to you guys. [800 reading, 790 writing]”

“Before taking the lesson from you, my son’s SAT writing was below 500; last year, he scored 800. Now he is a National Merit Semifinalist, which is mostly determined by English skills. You also helped him in many other areas, such as U.S History and getting into top summer camps.”

“I hope you still remember this De Anza college student. Well, after taking your course, I ended up not taking any SAT exam, for I no longer want to study at NYU. Instead of moving to the East, I decide to stay in California and attend a university here. Thanks God, I am recently admitted to the University of Southern California. Of course, part of my success comes from the long hours training with you during those hot-to-death afternoons. Thus, I just want to say thank and wish you luck with everything, especially with your teaching path!”

“I am one of the lucky students who studied with you to prepare for the Graduate Record Exam. Now I am working toward my master’s degree at Santa Clara University. I am very grateful to Improve Your English in helping me get there!”

“Before my daughter started with Improve Your English, her state assessment [on the STAR reading test] was at 900. In less than a year of working with the program, her assessment rose to 1,200 (full score is 1,400). Since starting the program, she has become much more interested in reading English language books. Before coming here, she was only interested in Chinese books. We are very happy with her progress so far.”

“We’re quite satisfied with Anne Noel. From the first trial session my daughter, a 9th grader, noticed that Anne can explain concepts much better than the teachers at her school. The tutoring is fairly smooth partially due to Anne teaches similar curriculums at her own school. Below is the comments directly from my daughter:

‘Ms. Noel is a very good teacher and I’m very appreciated of her help with my math. My math score has been continuingly climbing. I like the way she teaches: she will explain the problem to me first and let me explain it back to her to see whether I fully understand the problem. Everytime when I had a problem in my school work she would quickly find an easier way for me to understand it. She also found some problems for me as homework while we had classes during holidays, the time I was previewing my textbook for next semester, to help me better prepare for the next semester.

‘I like Anne’s class very much.’”