Oakland Language Lessons

I took away a whole array of new strategies and techniques to help preserve my voice and to increase my range. What a surprise- I had no idea I could sing so high!! Kathleen is a wonderful teacher and a really super lady. I'll be back for more lessons in the fall.

My daughter is really enjoying her voice lessons. Kathleen is a talented, caring teacher and knows how to make the process effective and fun for my daughter. My daughter loves being able to choose the songs she wants to learn, and this collaborative process keeps her quite interested and inspired.

Excellent Voice Teacher

Mrs. B is a wonderful and dedicated teacher who focuses diligently during class sessions. She thoroughly explains terms and technique and is friendly and sociable. Her extensive knowledge of languages comes extremely useful in Italian arias and other folk songs as to explain the meanings of words and to convey motion. Her classes are enjoyable and fun, while still being comprehensively academic.

James and I worked together for 4 months at an elementary school tutoring 3-5 graders in math and english. James is professional, intelligent, and creative. It was a pleasure working with him. He cares very much for the youth in our community.
We've stayed in touch via email and are developing a friendship I hope lasts a life time. He is good people.

james is a good voice instructor with many years of experience to share with you to get you to be the best singer you can be.

James is an excellent instructor that has tremendous amount of patience with the most difficult students. He is also very skillful in academics especially English and language arts. He has the unquie ability to break the assignment or steps down for the student to learn on his/her individual level! A great pleasure to work beside him !

I have confidence in my teacher. I already learned a lot in my first lesson. I am looking forward to my second lesson and maybe many lessons later in future.

Jimmy Yang

She got my voice flowing more smoothly in the first lesson! She really knows her technique and how to properly treat your voice :)

Patient

Too early to tell how it will go.

Olga is a kind, patient instructor. We are glad to have her as our singing teacher.

Olga transformed my technique completely! She's got a lot of experience and knows exactly how to help me find the right technique using various ways to explain, such as the physical and physiological side, as well as more imaginative and creative explanations that I could easily relate to. I enjoyed the lessons very much because I felt I was achieving something new every lesson. Will definitely take more lessons with Olga in the future!

We had a great first lesson. Very relaxed and unassuming. Looking forward to upcoming lessons.

Terrific with our small kids. Extremely patient and easy to laugh

My boys took to him right away! He has a fantastic balance of high expectations/standards mixed with positive reinforcement. He also differentiated expertly with the 2 boys' ages/capacities. We look forward to continuing our lessons with him!

5 stars' teacher

We just had our first lesson and we hit a few bumps but my daughter has never had music instruction before so we're giving it another go next week to see if things go more smoothly. 3 stars above says meets expectations, and though it didn't, I just hesitate to give someone 2 stars based on one lesson.
Here are some details from class:
My daughter (K) just turned 5 but is pretty mature for her age and has expressed an interest in learning the piano so we signed up for individual lessons with Lella. At the start of class I mentioned again (I had noted it at booking time as well) that K has had zero experience with music instruction. Immediately Lella sat with K on the piano bench and started explaining treble clef sign, bass clef sign and what hands they relate to. Lella also has a thick accent as I was trying to follow along with her explanations with a little difficulty. She even asked if K speaks Chinese and I said "no" so she said "you're Indian right?" My daughter would look around from time to time while Lella was explaining at which point Lella would just keep seeing "Pay attention sweetie!" Then she asked my daughter to write the numbers 1-5 in a book and when she said she didn't know how to write the number 2, Lella laughed and said "you know, but you forgot right" so I spoke up and explained "no she has not been taught to write her numbers yet, but she can read/recognize them" to which Lella seemed very surprised, so I felt the need to say, "she's still in preschool. But if you write them she'll be able to tell you what they are." So then Lella switched to counts, explaining about the values of different notes. She asked my daughter if she had questions, to which my daughter said "I think I understand what you're saying, if it's just a circle that means four, but if it's a circle with a line..." And before she could finish her thought Lella said "no that's not a line, it's a stem". At another point when Lella asked if she had any questions, my daughter slowly said "yes... what's velour?" And when Lella looked confused I had to step in and explain that Lella was saying "value", the amount of counts for a note. By the end of the half hour lesson, Lella had reached her explanation of middle C, which she described to my daughter saying "this is middle C because it's in the middle, there are two black keys, then on the left is C. Can you find another one?" When K didn't respond right away, she repeated herself, and again another time. So I said "she really has had no previous music experience, I think you need to even explain to her that those are called keys, like there are black keys, white keys..." And Lella just looked at me confused.
At the end of the lesson I agreed to buy the theory book so we can practice that at home, and Lella asked if I can sit in on the next lesson to help explain things to my daughter, because she "doesn't really focus". I agreed to sit in on the lesson, for my own benefit so I can help her with HW since I also don't have music experience. But I also mentioned to Lella that her accent is quite strong and I think my daughter was having trouble understanding her, and Lella seemed surprised by that comment.
I don't know... it says on Lella's profile that she has worked with young kids but I can't really see how the class was any different from how she would teach me, an adult with no prior music experience.
Oh! I forgot to mention something so basic - when we met Lella she thought I was someone else so I re-introduced myself and introduced my daughter. Then as we were saying goodbye at the end of class I realized Lella had never introduced herself to my daughter, so I asked "oh, what would you like K to call you, Ms. Li, or Lella? Ms. Lella?" She said Lella was fine so I turned to K and said "Tell Lella bye K." It just hit me, I mean that's something about creating a relationship with a young student. Speaking to them directly, making that connection. Lella was really smiley which gave the impression she was friendly but she never really made a connection with K who is the student, not me.

Lella quickly recognized what I needed to practice and brought me a great book that helped me get back to where I was very quickly.

Great teacher! She's warm, enthusiastic about teaching and thorough in explanations.

About my class: It’s very good. The reading part is very interesting (that Ted talk). Before that I didn’t read loudly. When I started Ted talk Odaya she advised me to read at loud, when I didn’t understand something. When I practiced that later at home, I felt the change. I am very much excited for my next class

enjoyable & productive!