“For me, Tamara Prokofyeva has always been the symbol of Britishness and accent perfection. And whenever I discuss with someone the question of “being perfect in a foreign language” I always say that she is the only Russian speaking person I know who can be proud of speaking a foreign language without a trace of her native accent. To my mind accent is a very important aspect which gives people the idea of who you are. It shows the attitude and quality, as well as respect for the culture and the language you speak. It is a sort of a business card for a person. And finally, it allows people to whom you speak relax while listening to you and not pay attention to other possible mistakes which we all inevitably make in the process of learning.

Tamara is my first phonetics teacher, and I can definitely say that her one-year phonetics course at St. Petersburg State University gave me much more than any other English teacher’s course in my entire life, for which I am very grateful to her. I think of her practically every time I speak English. It helps me tune into her style. And every time I do, I feel grateful. I studied other languages after English, and whatever language it was I used the same articulation principles and approaches she introduced to us in class, helping me achieve very good results in the end. But the most pleasant thing was to hear a question from one of my British clients after a mere 5-minute conversation, “Are you British? Your English is perfect”.

To be honest, my English is not perfect, but that was the impression my pronunciation made. Now, whenever I don’t use English for a while my pronunciation becomes worse. Still, whenever I need it, I improve it using Tamara’s methods, because now I understand how the system works. She is a real accent guru and master and I am very proud to have been her student.”