Case Studies
I have taught French and German to hundreds of students on a one-to-one basis. All of my students achieved their set goals and many exceeded their own expectations. I have an excellent knowledge of various different teaching strategies and have gained teaching experience with all age levels, from beginner to high achiever.
Below is a very small selection of my past students whom I have taught in the past twelve years.
My youngest students were 4 years old and the oldest student that I ever taught was in their 80s.
KS2; German
Lilly spent some time living abroad in Switzerland with her family and was quite confident in speaking German. Unfortunately, her written work was rather limited and she made lots of mistakes in her texts and short essays. In order to apply for a drama scholarship which was offered by her school, she needed to improve her written German skills. I met her twice per week and by discussing her school day and writing down what she has done during the day, she quickly managed to get a grasp for the right grammatical structures and passed the scholarship exam. She was very happy about it and proud of herself as she though she would never be able to get this scholarship.
Lilly
Ambre is a native speaker of French and lives in Geneva with her parents. Her parents wanted her to grow up bilingually and hence sent her to a German school in Geneva. She was struggling a lot with the language at the beginning and was not keen to learn German at all. I spent three months living with her and spoke German with her during the whole afternoon when she came home from school. In order not to put any more pressure on her after coming home from school, we played lots of games, spend time playing outside where I used German in a playful manner. This way she managed to learn German without any extra pressure. She has now passed her exams with great results in the German school.
Ambre
Year 4; German
KS3, year 7; German
I have recently taught Claudia who is a student in year 7. She has started German and was not keen about it from the start as she had learned French in previous years and preferred it to any other language. I met her a few times where I introduced authentic German materials like German music and German TV shows which she devoured and is a keen German speaker now.
Claudia
Joseph is in his first year at Eton and was looking for some additional support with his GCSE German. Although he is only in Year 9, they have begun the GCSE course and he is keen to ensure that there are no gaps in his knowledge as he is a scholar and eager to do well. I usually meet him in his holidays and we have very long sessions where we cover grammar and vocabulary work at the same time. Joseph is a very keen learner and due to his previous grammar knowledge in Latin and Greek, he is able to transform his existing knowledge and match it with new topics. He is constantly performing at a high level and I need to make sure to provide him with relevant cultural work like books, movies and music which can be combined with his curriculum.
Joseph
KS3; German
I have started tutoring Aaron last year in September. He was scoring around 67-72% in mock papers. In his most recent mock paper however, he scored 98% which is an incredible improvement.
Aaron
IGCSE; German
Giorgia was getting lots of Bs in mock papers and was not very confident with her German vocabulary. I was tutoring her for around 7 months and in the end she got an A* in her German IGCSE exam (Edexcel exam board).
Giorgia
IGCSE; German
IGCSE; German
I have recently prepared Ivan for his upcoming GCSE exams. He is currently working on getting an A* in his exams, although his current grade is a B. We met every day during half term and he was working on different exercises in order to boost his exam technique. At the end of the week we did a whole mock exam and he scored an A. He is confident that with some more work he will be able to get the A* he is longing for.
Ivan
Last year I taught German to a student who was a strong candidate and wanted to achieve a B grade in his A Level exam. I knew that he just lacked a bit of confidence that was hindering him getting an A grade. Whenever I met him for his lessons I encouraged him to try harder exercises and when he realised that he was able to manage them, his confidence rose and he achieved an A* in his German A Level exam.
Hugh
A-Level ; German
Fei was taking German lessons at the Language Center and needed some extra help in order to prepare a presentation at the end of the course. I met her twice a week in order to help her with the writing that needed to be done for the presentation. Fei managed to prepare a very good piece of work and won the first price out of 25 students. Throughout her preparation time, I guided her by giving her new input and helped her with new ideas that she researched and used for her presentation.
Fei
Undergrad student at Oxford University ; German
Brandon was a beginner of German when I first met him. German was the first foreign languages he has ever learned and he was struggling with the grammar of it. By meeting him once a week and going through material in class, he was able to repeat all the exercises that were done in class and felt more confident to ask questions. At the end of the course he scored 85/100 in his final test and was very happy about his success. Although he was not very keen at the beginning of the course to continue German in his second year, he took German in his second year as well and has recently reported that he decided to go to Germany for an exchange term. His hard work paid of and he was very proud of himself.
Brandon
Undergrad at StFX University ; German
I am currently preparing Larry for his SAT German exam. He is applying for various IVY League universities in the US and an excellent SAT German exam result will give him extra credits and set him apart from his peers.
Larry
SAT ; German
Reception; French
Katja was in nursery when I started teaching her French via educational play like colouring, listening to music, singing songs and playing games. After having had lessons every weekend for half a year she is already able to respond in French when being asked simple questions. She understands most of what is said to her and has made great progress in a very short time.
Katja
Renata is a very bright student who needs to be challenged accordingly to her ability. She enjoys speaking French a lot and whenever we learn new vocabulary or new grammar structures, we invent stories with these new words which we act out. This way she always remembers her newly learned words and enjoys the lessons. She is very keen to speak French and I always make sure to prepare a new plot which we can act out.
Renata
KS2; French
I have helped Lukas to prepare for his end of year French exam. Lukas is a very bright young boy who is always looking for a new challenge. Hence, when teaching him, I had to assure a good variety of different challenging exercises in order to make sure that he was pushed at the right level. Lukas had his oral French exam where he scored an A* and is now awaiting to hear back about his results from the written exam.
Lukas
KS3, Year 7; French
Josh
KS3, Year 7; French
When I started teaching Josh, he thoroughly disliked his French teacher at school and hence had difficulties with French from the start. When I started teaching him, I had to make sure to build his confidence first with short competitive exercises which he enjoys a lot. Josh has never done any homework and was scared to ask questions in class. Since I started teaching him, he was able to improve his French massively and has received over 70% in his last exam which is a very good indicator of his recent progress. His teacher in class has said that she can see that his attitude towards French is slowly changing and that he is more eager to participate in class than he used to be.
Henry
KS4; French
Henry was a very good Frech student with a B grade who wanted to get an A in his French GCSE exam. I met him once per week where we looked at previous GCSE exams in order to prepare him for the final exam. He was very eager to go through lots of past papers and his perseverance paid off as he achieved an A* in the end which made him very proud and he even chose French for his final exam.
13+
13+; French
I worked with a student for several months in the lead up to her 13+ French exams for Cheltenham Ladies’ College. We worked together weekly and focused on practising her exam technique and fine-tuning her language skills. She passed her exams with flying colours and started at Cheltenham in September 2017.
Scholarship
13+; French
I worked with a boy who applied to Harrow and who was also sitting the Westminster Scholarship exams. He was attending St. Thomas’ Battersea, and we were working together weekly to keep him on track for his exams, and for the high expectations of the scholarship exams. He got a scholarship for Harrow.
Max
IGCSE; French
Max has recently written his French IGCSE exam and is confident to be able to achieve a B. When I first met him, he struggled a lot with his grammar and had a very limited vocabulary. We spent a few hours daily reviewing grammatical topics and then doing relevant past papers. At the beginning he struggled a lot with the exercises but was getting more and more confident as we spent a dedicated time with each exercise where grammar and vocabulary was consistently reviewed and discussed.
Amy
IGCSE; French
I have prepared Amy for her oral French GCSE exam. She was panicking about the exam as she was predicted an E grade. I met her during her holidays and spend a couple weekends with her and in the end she managed to achieve a C grade. It was important to boost her confidence first before studying for the exam. Once she overcame her fear of failing, she was quite eager to push herself and proof to her teacher that she can do much better than predicted. I managed to help her to overcome her panic attacks by providing short exercises and build on her previous knowledge.
Sarah did not do A Level French at school and was finding her French course very challenging. When I first met her, I assessed her previous knowledge and we worked out a revision plan for her which would help her to close existing knowledge gaps but at the same time help her to keep up with the requirements of the course. Sarah scored 68% in her first exam, managed to get 77% in her next exam and is now working on getting a first degree in French. She would have never thought that it was possible to close existing gaps and still keep up with her course work. However, she is a dedicated student and has proven to herself that she is able to achieve her goals with some help. I am very confident that she will get a first degree in French.