As an experienced musician myself, I searched for the perfect music teacher for my own budding…read moreyoung musicians. I am beyond thrilled with the Suzuki Music Institute of Dallas. This school has phenomenal teachers, fabulous group music classes, and unparallelled theory and composition training. All their students study individually with instructors as well as in ensemble settings, and all take separate theory classes. They perform at least 4 times per year, which is great practice! It's a wonderful music community, one I only experienced when I got to college! I wish they had had a school like this when I was a child! We are not planning for our children to be professional musicians (and indeed I am not, either), but I appreciate that my children are in an environment that maximizes their potential. My children play piano, and it has always been fun, move-at-your-own-pace, and encouraging. My little ones are pretty sensitive, so negative pressure or stress would really turn them off--but they love this place and all their teachers, and happily skip into the building each week! The classes and the practice are definitely a time commitment, but the kids love it, and we are committed to making music an integral part of their lives. There is excellent instruction for all levels, from pre-schoolers and young children (like mine) through high school. Some of their recent graduates have gone on to study music at Juilliard and the Eastman School of Music.

I have had two children enrolled for several years and I have found that this school is…read moreextraordinary. It is an excellent experience for children, from 18 months to 18 years, and the music education is incomparable. Suzuki Music Institute of Dallas offers music lessons to children and their families. The instruments taught are violin, viola, cello, bass, piano, harp and organ. The teachers are committed, caring and extremely well trained. The school's history is long and its core mission has remained unchanged since it was first founded over 45 years ago. For the youngest students, SMID has the "Kodomo" class that is very good and unique. Imagine a circle of two-year-olds and their parents being led in song and rhythmic play by a teacher who has decades of music pedagogy experience, then add another equally knowledgeable and talented musician accompanying those children on a grand piano. This excellent class is affordable and meets on Saturday mornings. Instrument lessons are available for children age 3 and up. In addition to a weekly private lesson, there is a weekly group class and a theory class. Children, working a little each day with their parents, progress quickly and can do very impressive things musically. It is not unusual for children as young as 5 or 6 to be proficient music readers. The students love their teachers. It is possible, and not uncommon, for a student to have the same teacher for several years at a time. This long, caring relationship between teacher, student AND the parent, has a way of propelling children to do great things. Children are taught as individuals and the program is paced to each child's needs and abilities. Despite what other posters might have said, this school is the opposite of competitive! There are many special-needs children who are in the program, learning and growing. The spirit of non-competitiveness is actually intrinsic to the method; it was baked-in by Shinichi Suzuki himself and is carefully maintained at the school through ongoing parent and student education. I believe that the eduction my children are receiving at SMID will give a number of skills that will help them throughout their lives. They will probably not be professional musicians, but that is not the goal. The real goals for my children include learning that disciplined practice (work) can bring exciting and valuable skills, that effective collaboration with others is possible and rewarding, and that music can be beautiful and fun. Though a great value in my opinion, this is not the cheapest or easiest of music programs. There are other places where parents can simply drop off their children for instrument lessons and not have to be bothered with anything other that listening to the occasional practice. However, for those families who wish to do something more than "check the box" of getting music lessons for their kid, to instead actively pursue the rewards that a quality music education can give, this is the very best place for them.

Everything you need to know about the school: the school has ongoing difficulties hiring qualified…read moreteachers, which is a critical concern. The math teacher and the IB coordinator resigned last March, and as of December, no permanent replacements have been appointed. The teacher currently covering these responsibilities reportedly has no prior IB experience. Assigning teachers without confirmed IB background to senior-level classes raises serious concerns about the quality and continuity of instruction. The chemistry teacher taught online for half a year because the school was unable to secure a visa. Another teacher was hired in the middle of the year; however, the school has not provided any information regarding her IB experience or certification. This lack of transparency makes it difficult for parents to assess whether IB standards are being met. The school's salary and benefits package appears to be uncompetitive within the local market, which may explain the hiring challenges. At the same time, the school continues to allocate funds to cosmetic updates such as repainting facilities and redesigning the website through third-party contractors. This raises reasonable questions about budget priorities. Overall, student academic outcomes do not appear to be the school's primary focus. Additionally, it is publicly known that the director's wife works in UX design; beyond this, the rationale for the recent urgency to redesign the school's website remains unclear.

Imagine, just for a second, that you live in a different world…read more In this world, when you are traveling in France or Canadá, your child can have a conversation with adults or other kids in French with such a pure Parisian accent that no local would ever suspect that he/she did not grew up in France. Imagine a world where in highschool the honors class is the entire highschool, 9th graders present the College Board "AP French" exam and every single 9th grader gets a solid 5 (max AP grade). Imagine a place where AP courses and IB (International Baccalaureate) or FB (French Baccalaureate) diplomas are not mutually exclusive and, 1370 SAT and 30 ACT scores are the average. Sounds like a familiar place? If it does not then you should consider DIS for your kids.

We have been working with Ms. Jenna for over a year and I can see my kids appreciation for Chinese…read moregrowing. We are very glad we found her. She is very patient and kind with the kids and she has been very flexible to find time to make sure they are getting that consistency of practice it takes to maintain language skills. We are grateful for her!

Jenna is a wonderful Mandarin instructor. For over a year, she has successfully worked with my…read moreteenage son. Her lessons are interesting and interactive and she is friendly and patient which has really helped with language retention. Working with Jenna has significantly improved my son's proficiency in speaking, reading, and writing Mandarin. Also, from a parental standpoint, she is flexible and easy to work with. Highly recommend!!

This company has a good idea, but there are serious problems with it…read more 1) Bait and Switch. The sample math lessons are cute, with a "News broadcast" theme. But, after the first few lessons, some different ones start to get used. It's le a different program. A really bad one, with boring explanations interspersed with random cartoon pictures. My child hates these lessons and rightfully so. 2) Unclear instructions and mistakes. Sometimes, I can't even figure out what they're asking for. And sometimes I have found actual errors in the program (for example, it tells the child they got a problem wrong, but then gives the same answer the child entered!) 2) Company unresponsive. I tried thi address these issues by emailing the company, but they did not respond in any way. We're going to persevere, because we're in the middle of it now, but I wish I'd known about these problems before we'd started.

This website is garbage, it does not work it crashes all the time this crashing leads to having to…read morerestart lessons and just making the lessons twice the amount of time. I would not recommend this website to anyone, it takes longer for the "teachers" (if you can call them that) to stop talking than it does for you to take the test, it is annoying and a waste of time and money. Thanks for reading, T4L student

Best language classes. I have taken tons of language classes of different levels over the years,…read moreincluding high school, college, US government, online, and community adult education classes. I've also used Rosetta Stone, Fluenz, workbooks, apps, and podcasts. Different techniques work for different people, but Simona's approach seems to work for everyone. She's positive and motivating, yet creates a relaxed and comfortable environment for learning. Class sizes are small. I jumped into classes here somewhat blindly. I couldn't find any reviews. I barely found Farmers Branch on the map. Now, I'm happy to fight rush hour traffic to get to class every week.

Ciao, I have been studying Italian at The Italian School of…read moreDallas for 3 years now, I am able to write, read and most important of all speak in Italian! Besides the classes, we get together out of the school as well, we go out to eat Italian food and to parties, we speak in Italian about movies, books, traveling, etc. I really recommend it.

In my last review, I wrote that after this school, I could drop my kids off in Japan. As it turns…read moreout, my older daughter has worked for two Japanese offices in Hawaii where she had to communicate (writing and speaking) exclusively in Japanese. In both cases, she was the lone American in the department and she was able to function. I did drop my younger daughter off in Japan for college and she is now working in a Japanese office. Both of my kids have been able to function in a completely Japanese environment thanks to this school.

This is my second time taking Japanese lessons after I took it for two years at UNT in 2000. My…read morereview is for non-native Japanese lessons normally taught on Saturdays. I decided to start off with Level 1, the most basic course they offer. Coming back to Japanese in a non-graded and non-tested format is unusual because the class doesn't have all the testing normally associated with foreign language classes in high school and college in Texas. Japanese at a college level required that I learn hiragana and katakana over the span of six weeks, whereas this course gives you about 10 weeks for only hiragana, with katakana and kanji taught in later courses. The material has a strong focus on numbers early on in the course and the material has a business-minded bent for people who might go over to Japan for work-related reasons. Classes are easy-paced and instructors are patient with new students over pronunciation, character recognition and vocabulary drills. It is normal for classes to start off very crowded and to shrink over time. Some students just do not grasp the concepts taught in Japanese (different sentence structure, learning foreign character-based alphabets) and this was similar to what I experienced in college. Students who struggle are encouraged to attempt to take a class over again to reinforce the concepts and language. The classroom is a mix of different aged students from seniors in high school to actual seniors from a range of backgrounds, so classes are very diverse. Our instructor is a very nice and patient sensei who engages with the class frequently throughout each lesson. Portions of the class involve reviewing homework, doing vocabulary drills, playing "bingo" with hiragana characters, and question and answer worksheets where you talk to fellow classmates. Let me also state that the key to success in this class is through networking with the other students. Having someone else that understands the material from a different perspective can be invaluable when tackling a largely unrecognizable language like Japanese to a native English speaker. People who work alone seem to struggle more and drop out quickly, but if you're willing to work with your group or make a few friends, the class is immensely easier. I'm reviewing only the Level 1 class portion in my review. I will amend it later if/when I attend Level 2 courses.