A bit about Anika D

I have a great passion for education and enjoy bringing German to students in and outside of school as well as in the work environment for adults. I have extensive teaching experience in and outside of the traditional school environment and will bring a unique native background to my teaching. All my lessons are uniquely shaped according to the learner's ability and level of German. There is no "one way fits all" approach in my lessons and the material is designed to enhance the learning experience and create sustained language comprehension (reading and listening) and abilities to express in German in different settings, e.g. writing and speaking. I specialise in all aspects of German in all levels including GCSE and A Level German. I am a native German and can therefore also bring a deeper understanding of German and German culture, as well as the professional native German expertise to all lessons taught. My special areas are reading, listening, writing and speaking. Writing and speaking heavily depend on unseen and exciting vocabulary not taught in the minimum core vocabulary and this is where I can support my students even further. I started tutoring in Summer 2017 and have enjoyed this profession with every day more and more and would love to bring German to more households and support more students on the learning journey. Since then I have supported students on all levels and all ages and have also supported schoola in GCSE moderation as well as exam preparation. The most exciting and rewarding about teaching German is to see a students stand on "their own two feet" in my mother tongue, express themselves adequately and enjoy learning a new language. Often students do not feel as confident expressing themselves in another language, but seeing the work they produce, the enjoyment that comes from it and being part of this process is most rewarding on a professional and personal level. I take time to fully understand a learner's abilities and any areas of improvement and from that I am able to really focus on key areas. My lessons are unique tailored to each student, exam board and respective requirements of attainment. During the lessons the focus is on introducing vocabulary and bringing across relevant grammar. The students will then use the vocabulary and the grammar taught to use the content taught in live sentences, writing and speaking tasks as well completing comprehension in reading and listening. This is done in interactive way to encourage active participation and maximum attainment. I would like to ensure that students experience German in different setting to allow connection to language and simply have fun in the lessons also. What I most love about being a tutor is the special 1to1 or small group setting and the increased quality of learning students get from it. I have the opportunity to really bring my own style into the teaching and adapt to every students' individual learning requirements. Teaching within a curriculum gives the framework and clear guidance of topics and grammatical structures and being a tutor you have the chance to teach this framework in a more intensive and focused way. Also, I am able to navigate and adapt to any unique learning needs a student may have. Maybe they are more visual or more audio and that can then be represented on my lessons and I absolutely love this aspect about tutoring. I teach all major exam board including AQA, IGCSE Cambridge international. Edexcel and OCR. Each exam board has unique requirements and it imperative to fully understand each exam board's requirements and bring these across to the students. My knowledge of the exam boards equips me to help students understand exam techniques, special requirements and make them feel more comfortable when sitting an exam. I am huge literature fan and enjoy reading a lot. I love German and English literature and this brought me to appreciate German and English even more. When teaching German, I draw many comparisons between the two languages and many students are drawn in on the similarities. I am also a keen cyclist and enjoy a good long walk in the morning on weekends. The feedback from parents and students alike is that my lessons are fun and exciting and bring different angles language learning. This is in return appeals to students of all ages because they find learning German enjoyable and educating at the same time. I also offer offline homework support and use many different online and interactive tools to support students and parents throughout. When I then meet the students in the next lesson, they remember the content and they feel the learning is ongoing and not staccato. I firmly believe that teaching does not stop with the actual live lesson, it needs to continue in the time after the lesson also, to ensure the students has access to the language in a sustained way. Throughout the time as a tutor, I have embraced understanding a student's unique learning requirements and appealing to them with materials shaped for them. There is no such thing as " one way fits all" and encouraging students to express themselves with taught material as well as new and unseen content is a central part of my teaching. I enjoy leading students through their learning journey but I do not believe in a" tell and do" approach but rather coaching them through positive encouragement to steps in German and also try different way to say the same thing. My greatest success is my students' success. All my students have improved their grades and not only improved, but also enjoyed learning the language which is invaluable because it increases the chance, that they might continue with German in their later life and may be able to use it to further their education and job prospects. Teaching is one of the professions where an individual can make a real impact on a persons life, young or old. Teaching allows me to share knowledge and ways to access this knowledge in a unique way. And knowing that I am responsible to help a learner in their education and positively shaping their experience learning German is a true inspiration which never gets old but rather ever evolving.