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• When did your passion for teaching German begin?

  I have always been fascinated by languages and was the type of kid who always kept asking “what is that called like in French? And in English? German?...” Of course, that always depended who I spoke to. While I was studying in Germany, I worked in the Language Café (a place to learn pretty much every language via Computer and via various other methods) and I loved helping out with taking the fear off my students to speak without fear. No matter if they wanted to learn German, English, Chinese or.. anything really. So my passion is not about teaching German specifically, it is rather about languages in general. About speaking without fear and to teach / learn with fun.

• In your opinion, what does it take to be a successful German speaker?

  I think it is a lot about the passion for the language. There is always a reason behind learning something. In school, it is often put upon the students and they have to learn it, in order to get good marks rather than actually thinking about the language behind it. That was at least my own experience, when I learned languages in school.
  
  Think about it: you have a class which is stuck together for several years and everyone has different learning preferences, characteristics (...). The teacher tries to help out everyone, but mostly time is insufficient and students are too many. So it’s mostly a race through a book, with lots of grammar and some nice “let’s talk” treats in between. Yes, that doesn’t always have to be the case, but I have seen that one many times.
  
  In order to be a successful German speaker, I think it’s crucial to love the language. To have a good reason why you want to learn it. Maybe you want to able able to talk to your new German friends, relatives... or you just love the long German words (Bahnhofsgebäudenvorarbeiterschutzkleidungsettikettenschild) ... where you can pretty much invent new words every day (can be fun ;)), or the fun tongue twisters (Blaukraut bleibt Blaukraut und Brautkleid bleibt Brautkleid) ... i still struggle to say that one fast!... or... whatever your passion might be! And... success isn’t necessarily to speak perfectly without any mistakes. Take small steps, have fun and it’s gonna be great!

• What do you think is the most peculiar thing about the German language?

  I think it’s the “Der, Die, Das” thing. Whether something is male, female or neutral. It doesn’t follow any logic, so everyone just needs to memorise it.
  
  Also we have lots of little words like dem, den, deren, dessen, denen, ein, eine, etc.. which do take a bit of time to learn and to get the feel of it.

• What would you say to a student who says learning another language is useless or boring?

  I would say that he/she probably hasn’t learned the right one yet and ask for his / her reasons of saying that so we could find a good way of working together anyway.

• Finally, what piece of German literature would you say is an absolute must-read for all people learning to speak German?

  I would not want to recommend THE one, because I think it’s no use to read German poems if the students doesn’t have a heart for it. What I would recommend is to talk about what the student is interested in and then find a good fit of German literature. There are many to choose from, so I believe we can find something fun/serious/well written...
  
  Having said that, reading some literature from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe is something I would still recommend, as he wrote quite a few things and is a rather on German personality. :)