Our classic general language course, during which you will work on the “four skills” (speaking, listening, reading and writing – but primarily the first two) as well as building vocabulary, learning verbs and grammar/structure. We take things slow so that you have time to absorb the material.
Original price was: £176.00.£158.00
(Offer expires 24 May 26)
Current price is: £158.00.In stock
If you book for more than one person, we will ask for the details of additional people when you check out, so that we can contact them to register.
Discounts usually apply for multiple bookings as follows: 2 – 5%, 3 – 7%, 4+ – 10%. These discounts are per person and are on top of any offers while they last and will be reflected in basket price shown. Discounts do not always apply.
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Your teacher will work with a course book, which will be supplemented with other activities. You will gradually build your confidence in German. We strongly recommend a course abroad in a school that has a policy of “no other languages spoken”, and staying with a host family, if you want to make maximum progress. Consult us on schools that may suit you!
We feel that course books – though expensive (but do check out 2nd hand options!) – are a good anchor for general courses because they usually contain a lot of material of different types and come with audio (new books only!).
Language learning has many facets: speaking and listening are often paired (oral/aural) and reading and writing are another pair. Another way of looking at is “active” (speaking and writing) v “passive” (listening and reading).
We feel the key skills to master (being of most interest to the majority of our learners) are speaking and listening, so that you can communicate when travelling. Listening is probably the harder of these, as you may make yourself understood but understanding what comes back can be demanding, as how people phrase responses is unpredictable! You are ideally looking for a so-called “sympathetic interlocutor”, ie someone who understands they need to slow down, while still speaking normally, but you can’t really screen people you happen to meet! Our teachers are sympathetic interlocutions – they will speak at an appropriate pace and “grade” their language in relation to the level. This is why it’s a good idea to take courses with us in the “shallow end” before you throw yourself into deep water!
Reading of all sorts is great for input but relatively “easy”, as its not in real time. Writing is a very special skill – not everyone can write well in their first language; mastering this in another language, with aspects such as register/tone and punctuation conventions, is tough!
Our advice: focus on speaking and listening and build up your vocab, which is key to fluency. Grammatical accuracy is important too, if you want to come over as an educated person. You can buy grammar exercise books and study this aspect in your own time.
