compiled by Jean M (Nov 2000)

It is tricky to recommend schools because the quality of the courses and the teachers can be very different, even within the same school. You might be lucky and get a fantastic teacher, or maybe his/her personality or teaching style doesn’t suit you, or maybe you are unlucky and get a teacher with little experience or no teacher training. Shop around - you are the customer!

Here is a list of schools in Hamburg listed by district. The schools on this list have been accredited by the organization Weiterbildung Hamburg e.V. (Further Education Hamburg) and have the Geprüfte Weiterbildung seal (accredited Further Education). More information about this as well as about additional schools can be found at www.weiterbildung-hamburg.de or you can go to their offices for free advice and brochures at Lange Reihe 81 near the main train station, tel. 28 08 46-0 (daily 9:30 a.m. - 6 p.m., Wednesdays and Fridays until 12:30).

You can pick up a VHS catalog for your part of the city at most Thalia bookshops in the summer or call them directly. There are also many more places offering inexpensive courses for people on welfare, asylum seekers, Turkish women, Thai women, ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe etc.

• Evening courses
• Courses to prepare for examinations (Zertifikat Deutsch, Mittelstufenprüfung, Kleines und Großes Sprachdiplom)

• Intensive courses, maximum 10 students, mornings 4 hours
• Semi-Intensive courses in the afternoon
• Courses to prepare for examinations (Zertifikat Deutsch, Mittelstufenprüfung)
• Summer courses in July and August with cultural programs
• Conversation partners for several languages can be arranged

You can pick up a VHS catalog for your part of the city at most Thalia bookshops in the summer or call them directly. There are also many more places offering inexpensive courses for people on welfare, asylum seekers, Turkish women, Thai women, ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe etc.

"I am currently studying at Sprachefix which is a small privately language school. It is located in Eimsbittel at Bogenstr. 45a. There are two women, Friedy and Birthe, that run it as well as teach the courses. They are very friendly and are helpful even in difficult situations. For example, I have a small child who is sometimes sick and they will fax me the material so I can work at home. They usually have a course that runs three times a week and the price for three months is 698DM. I would definitely recommend this school. I also studied at Colon for two months when I arrived. The atmosphere was quite different and not as warm and friendly as this school. Colon does everything by the book and this school also uses the same book but comes up with more innovative ways to use the language. Games, Newspaper readings, Presentations on your homeland and culture."

"I took an intensive 5hr x 5 days week course for 6 months at Colon when I first arrived. It was a mixed nationality course, and I was lucky to have a lot of motivated peers and a good teacher. Because we were all different nationalities, we were forced to speak German together. I can recommend Colon as relatively inexpensive and good."

"This is a language club I’ve heard good things about. If learning lots of languages is your hobby, you can join this club for a monthly fee of 59,- DM and take as many classes as you like. If you’re just interested in German, you pay the price stated above."

"If anyone is looking for a somewhat more intermediate level course, this school where I teach offers a once-a-week, 90-minute German lesson, Tuesday evenings from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Marion Leuschner is the teacher. She uses lots of current events and news items, but also focuses on grammar, oral and written work. A number of my non-native-speakers-of-German students have sung their praises of her more than once! Further info about prices and registration can be obtained from the office. The secretaries have excellent German but not so much English, so you can practice what you've already learned!"

"I have been taking Deutsch für Ausländer classes from the Volkshochschule in St. Georg on and off for 2 years now. I have had a good experience there and would recommend it to others. I have really enjoyed 3 out of 4 of the classes I've taken there. I was less impressed with one class - in part because the teacher was not very enthusiastic but also because the combination of students in the class didn't work well. A nice thing about the VHS is that there are lots of sections of the same level offered during the semester, so if you find yourself with a teacher or class you don't like you can simply ask to move to a different class. The atmosphere at the VHS tends to be easygoing and the teachers are pretty flexible about homework and about class topics."

"One thing that can be annoying about the VHS classes is that lots of students drop out and new students appear over the course of the semester. This may be because the VHS classes are so inexpensive - I guess there is less incentive to stay and work when you haven't paid a lot of money for the class. Most of the classes I've taken have had between 8 and 15 students."

You can pick up a VHS catalog for your part of the city at most Thalia bookshops in the summer or call them directly. There are also many more places offering inexpensive courses for people on welfare, asylum seekers, Turkish women, Thai women, ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe etc.

You can pick up a VHS catalog for your part of the city at most Thalia bookshops in the summer or call them directly. There are also many more places offering inexpensive courses for people on welfare, asylum seekers, Turkish women, Thai women, ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe etc.

You can pick up a VHS catalog for your part of the city at most Thalia bookshops in the summer or call them directly. There are also many more places offering inexpensive courses for people on welfare, asylum seekers, Turkish women, Thai women, ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe etc.

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