I am an independent German teacher with 20 years of experience.
I ensure a responsive, challenging, and rewarding learning experience.
My teaching style is far from the image of a classic language teacher.
My primary concern is to cultivate a comfortable and tactful learning space that allows participants to be carried away and have fun while learning German.
This, even though German will mainly be used as the language of instruction. This helps provide a safe space for participants to immerse themselves in German so that they gain the confidence to do it outside the class as well.
Lessons are lively, creative, and premised on a self-discovering method that allows participants to encounter complex grammar topics with trust. Together, we’ll make short work of vocabulary. Drawing on years of experience and unique course contexts allows me to offer the possibility for participants to make great progress as the individuals they are.
As a bilingual native speaker of German and Turkish I was raised in the diverse district of Neukölln, in Berlin.
Since my early years, I was confronted by the challenges of linguistic and cultural clashes and this has shaped my understanding of languages and my understanding for language acquisition process. I still love to learn languages: I also speak English and Portuguese.
I graduated with a Master's degree in Deutsch als Fremdsprache: Kulturvermittlung (German as a Foreign Language: Cultural Mediation) from the Freie Universität zu Berlin. I have been teaching German as a foreign language in Berlin and abroad for 20 years and can look back on more than 20,000 teaching hours. Initially, I taught both general and vocational German courses in my hometown of Berlin at the Volkshochschule-Mitte and at the Hartnackschule, among others. Abroad, I taught German as a foreign language at the language centers of the Universidade de Nova de Lisboa and at Ankara Üniversitesi.
From 2014 to 2021, I taught German as a foreign language together with my team at my own language school based in Berlin-Neukölln (Sprachmafia. Die Sprachschule in Berlin) mostly to young people newly settled in Neukölln. In a short time, we developed as a language school, committed to a family-style approach to participants and teachers, to an insider tip for language course seekers.
Takt is my latest project, which started in 2022 to reach people around the world with limited time and to respond to the times, which are becoming more and more digital and demand flexibility.
You want to find out more about me?
Here is the interview I had with GRÆS in 2020:
