Meet the Team – Sarah

As our Special Projects Manager, Sarah has become a true source of wisdom of German grammar, curricula and teaching methods. She’s been part of Speakeasy for quite some time and has offered her experience and knowledge to improve our course offers and is such a truly fantastic German teacher. Today, we would like you all to get to know her a little better – if you haven’t had the pleasure yet of taking one of her German courses yet.

Meet Sarah!

Why did you become a German teacher?

A different language is a different vision of life and opens the doors to a completely new world. It shapes thoughts and enables you to reach hearts. But it also tells you so much about yourself and others, – plays such a big role in how we perceive the world. It is the very basis of the society in which we live. Our words reflect and affect our world.

I was always impressed by this immense importance and power of language. Already at a very young age I started learning my first foreign languages and was determined to one day support others in mastering new languages.

What’s your favorite thing about the German language?

I love how you can put several words together to form crazily long words that are still grammatically correct, like Rind­fleisch­eti­ket­tierungsüber­wa­chungs­auf­ga­ben­über­tra­gungs­ge­setz.

How long have you worked with Speakeasy?

I have been working with Speakeasy since 2017.

 How do online lessons work?

All online lessons are connected through a live video platform, where the student and the teacher meet in a virtual classroom for an interactive lesson. Student and teacher can agree flexibly on the specific teaching times and then meet online over Skype. The teacher and the student connect over video call and start their virtual lesson. Files, links and vocabularies which are necessary for the lesson, can be exchanged via the chat option. The screen sharing function enables the teacher to share his/her screen with the student, – similar to a board in an offline classroom. It also allows the teacher to share videos, audios and other interactive materials that are necessary for an effective lesson.

What are the advantages of online lessons?

There are plenty of advantages of taking online classes:

It makes lessons more diverse and effective as it enables the teacher to use a variety of multimedia, such as videos, news articles and podcasts to create an efficient and interactive lesson. Worksheets and other useful documents can be easily sent to the student before or during the lesson. Unknown vocabulary is directly typed in the chat box which saves precious lesson time compared to offline lessons where the student regularly invests a certain amount of time to copy from the board.

Skype lessons offer great flexibility that one often doesn’t get with offline teaching. It gives students the opportunity to study at their convenience and balance work and private commitments with their language studies by planning their teaching times around the rest of their day.

Another advantage is the more comfortable learning environment: A virtual lesson just needs a working internet connection; thus, students can attend classes wherever they feel most comfortable. Students can learn the language in a cosy environment, where they feel at ease and where they can best concentrate on language learning.

Furthermore, it saves precious time as one doesn’t have to spend one’s time travelling to the course location. No need to fight traffic (and Deutsche Bahn) anymore!

You can find all of our current, as well as new online course options here.

Our team wants to make online learning as seamless as possible for you: if this will be your first Skype session, we will happily navigate you to your first online course.

Thanks for your insights, Sarah!