German Classes for Teens
Hello, Fellow Parents,
My 13-year-old daughter has been taking German classes at her school for the past 2 1/2 years, plus Saturday classes. Her school just stopped offering the classes and I'm looking for a class with other kids her age. I'd appreciate any recommendations.
Dec 29, 2016
Parent Replies
Hi there,
My 16yo daughter is currently an AFS exchange student in Germany. For the past 4 years she has been studying German as an extra curricular activity because her school(s) doesn't offer it. Here's what we did: 1) Got a tutor at Classroom Matters (her tutor has moved to Austria, sad for us); 2) attended a 6 weeks summer language immersion intensive program associated with Middlebury College/Monterey Language Institute; 3) attended German School of the East Bay (Saturday school) for a few weeks; 4)Rosetta Stone; 5)DuoLingo; and 6)this past summer she studied German 3 at Tilden Prep. My daughter is a pretty independent learner but she did miss having a peer group.
I think she would say that Rosetta Stone and DuoLingo were not very helpful. Her first tutoring at Classroom Matters was a good introduction to the language, but it was really the immersion program that made her conversant in German. She also enjoyed her German 3 tutor at Tilden. They covered a lot of grammar, but they really focused on conversation and accent; she wanted to be comfortable enough with the language when she arrived in Germany.
You might consider looking at German School of the East Bay: https://gseb-school.org/ The semester starts soon, so now is a good time. You might also consider contacting the other families in her school's German class and seeing if anyone wants to get a group together for a class at Tilden Prep. Hope this helps! feel free to contact me for more info.