Why did we learn English? --- We moved to the US almost 4 years ago and at first we believed that we would acquire English naturally just from living here. But the reality is that we don't have to or need to speak in English enough to be able to learn it well. My husband works in an IT company and most of his colleagues speak our first language or some other non- English language, so he mostly knows only the vocabulary he needs for work. Because of the pandemic we chose to homeschool our son and as a result I am a stay-at-home mom. What's more, there are so many Russian-speaking specialists of any kind (violin, drawing, boxing, soccer coaches, CPAs, doctors, librarians, shop assistants, etc. that we were ok with the English level that we had. Within the first months of our arrival in the United States we met 5 Russian-speaking families with kids of my son's age at the playground near our apartment. Also all members of our family are introverted and we don't need that much socialization like extraverted people need. So it was a natural choice to hire a tutor. At first Martha worked only with my son to prepare him for the speaking part of ELPAC (California state test for ESL students). They started in March 2020, but the test was canceled during the first year of pandemic. So by February 2021, when he took the test, he was well prepared and was reclassified with an impressive Level 4 results in all skills (reading, writing, listening, speaking). Some months after my son began his lessons with Martha tutor I decided that it's a good idea for me too. In about a year I realized that I don't have the desire to become unnoticeable at the meetings of our homeschool group and that now I don't even mind joining in conversations and I even enjoy it.

Anna and Mark from Russia

My son, George, has started working with Martha when he was five years old. Our goal for George was to learn how to read. It was at the beginning of the pandemic when no other in-person classes were offered. I was not sure how a five year old would learn to read via zoom, but I decided to give it a try. George loved Martha’s classes from the beginning. They would laugh and giggle together reading a book. I was amazed at Martha’s ability to keep the attention of our son even when he was not feeling like attending a class. She would start talking to him, ask questions and he would respond to her very quickly. They did comprehensive phonics, side words and slowly progressed to reading. I am still amazed how she was able to teach a five year old via zoom! Martha is very nurturing, flexible and very caring about her students. It feels almost that she is part of our family. Our son is more advanced in reading and comprehension in his class. All of it was only because of Martha and our family is very grateful!