Job Discussion Forums

[Hod]

The Goethe teacher I had the misfortune to end up with back then, she had no qualifications whatsoever - fair enough - but she had so obviously zero training and didn�t even seem interested. Then after I complained, she wrote me a long long e-mail, all in pretty complex German, saying what a shame it all was I had complained blah blah. Mind you, the e-mail was sent a few minutes before midnight one Saturday so she was probably tired and emotional anyway.

"lunasea" asked about the other school in Schoeneberg Berlin. I have to say that what I saw was good. OK, the timing of the class didn�t suit me, and I made other plans, but the teaching was far superior to the Goethe Institut.

Anyway, I ended up doing one-to-one classes and soon wondered why I ever bothered with a classroom full of other students. If you want to learn a language properly, either marry a local (not my type) or get a one-to-one teacher.

[lunasea]

hi! i'm finally in berlin and i'm halfway through an intensive course at the deutsch akademie in mitte (near kadewe.) i have to say, i love it. of course, there are students in the class who aren't up to our level (and shouldn't be in this level) and the class is maxed out at 10 (i wish there were 8 or so) but the teacher is pretty darn good. 2 thumbs up from me! and it was CHEAP! 205 euros for the entire month!

[puhutes]

Oh wow, that's pretty cheap! The Goethe Institute in Berlin is extraordinarily expensive! My Goethe Institute training in Ottawa Canada wasn't horrible and it wasn't too expensive...but studying at a private(not a chain school) was my best experience

[Harry H]

I've taken 3 German courses at the Goethe-Institutes in London, Bremen and Toronto. The London and Toronto courses were the long variety (8 months sounds about right), and they were quite good. I liked the teachers and learned quite a bit.

The course in Bremen, however, wasn't so good. It was a summer 4-week intensive course, M-F mornings only. Nice institute (before it moved to the university in the north of the city) but, boy, the teacher was lousy. The whole class agreed. He just talked and talked himself but didn't actually seem able to teach. I learned almost nothing. And it was so expensive! I think it was �1500 or something. I didn't complain, though, because frankly I was in Bremen for a holiday more than to learn German!

But, ya, the quality at the Goethe can vary, and it really shouldn't given their prices.

[RonPrice]

Goethe, himself, had some wonderful qualities. I wrote the following yesterday. It has nothing to do with ESL, but it shows the distance many people and perhaps this Institute, is/are from the master's thoughts and deeds.-Ron in Tasmania
--------------------
GOETHE

As a writer and poet whose work is largely unread and rarely discussed, except on the internet among coteries most of whom are at sites of little significance and among coteries most of whom are drowning in a sea of print from the burgeoning word factories of our modern world, I felt a certain kinship with the German genius Goethe whose work is also largely unread and rarely discussed in both the circles I have been part of on my earthly journey, circles populist or academic, and circles I have not been part of since the mid-twentieth century except, Daniel Spiro informs us, among some American liberal students who never read him again after graduation.

I also felt a sense of kinship with this universal man, as the historian Thomas Carlyle called Goethe, due to a range of factors and personal qualities which he manifested in his life: his enjoyment of life with its emphasis on living in the moment combined with his rich sense of history as well as an intoxication with the eternal; his emphasis on self-expression and developing one�s faculties, on seeing things with one�s own eyes and from one�s own perspectives; his keen enthusiasm for ethics as well as learning how to be good and teaching others how to be good as well; his philosophizing within an intellectual tradition that pointed to a direction in living both for him and for others; his desire to experience epiphanies, epiphanies that had eternal significance; his doing away with traditionalist and fundamentalist Christian mythology; his view of life as a series of encounters and dialogues; his deep belief in the principles of polarity and intensity, of oscillation and reproduction, and the application of these principles to his life and the live of others and society; his view of art as a tool for integrating one�s personality and as a tool for acquiring insight about the various objects of one�s contemplations--and the passing on of these insights to future generations; his belief that happy emotions could defeat base inclinations; his lifelong effort to find patterns in life, patterns which enhanced one�s sense of meaning; his capacity to go on writing about his experience, experience which was essentially about his inner life and not about egoistic greatness and external pleasures, experience that was more about his private character, the lamps of his search and striving, his passionate devotion and love, his own raptures and ecstasies as he went about dispelling the mists of doubt, wrestling with circumstances and himself and seeking knowledge wherever it will lead. -RPrice, Memoirs,25/8/08

[mouse5]

Listen up guys. Forget the Goethe Institut and the fancy language schools here in Berlin. Most are a rip off. Buy yourself a decent grammar book and advertise for a "tandem". Get together on a daily basis, buy them a few lunches, and get out there talking to people. It'll work out much cheaper than a lousy Sprachkurs - where you spend every lesson break speaking English!

Berliner Brit

[Hod]

[Hod]

Started a Spanish Course at Instituto Cervantes in Berlin. I wanted to post after the first lesson but thought it only fair to do so after a few more classes. Four lessons on, it�s now time to speak. Absolute bloody garbage, pitiful. Ten minutes into the fourth lesson today, things fell apart, and all students asked what on earth was going on (in German). My fellow students are none too pleased at their so-called teacher, but as an ex-teacher I can be more objective � she sucks. After these last four weeks, I will never set foot in a classroom with a language teacher again. So many of them, most of them, are clueless. Teachers need to understand, people like me really really need to learn. We don�t leave work early � and lose money � to prat about for three hours a week having a laugh. Teachers rant on here about the importance of their profession, but they put in performances which would have them cleaning the bogs in any normal walk of life. If I put in such woeful work, I�d very soon be found out and be out on my ear within a week. You teachers, you need to sort it out if anyone is going to take you seriously.

[scot47]

"Foreign languages are learnt, not taught." Was that Weinberg ? Or Weinstein ? Or Wienerschnitzel ?

[Hod]