Simona Amstutz

It was a great trial lesson with Simona! She was very encouraging when it came to speaking with confidence, talked to me about potential lessons plans and the best way to go. Within minutes, she was able to identify my strengths in learning and come up with something to suit that. She is very attentive and engaged with the lesson making it easier to stay focused and work. I will be booking more lessons with her!

I have been working with Simona for almost a year. During that time, I required different types of instruction due to the natural arc of my learning. Simona has been flexible and supportive, always collaborating with me in whatever learning style is working for me at the time. She is patient and kind. I wasn't making much progress in my German learning before I started working with Simona. I have progressed from a silent and solo book learner to a conversational learner. She sends online news or magazine articles to her students every Friday. I read one before my lesson so that we can discuss it. This forces me to find the words for current events and the world around me. Before working with Simona, I was not engaging with real-life language in this way. She pushed me and I feel a lot more comfortable with expressing myself on real-life topics in German now.

Simona is a super fun teacher, I thoroughly enjoy the hours we have together. I struggled for a while to find a teacher who has a light-hearted approach to studying German (I always ended up finding lessons a bit of a slog) - but I don't find this with Simona at all. We always chat about topics that are interesting to both of us, and she gives me lots of space to speak German, correcting me where necessary - she writes these down for me in the chat, and I copy them over into a word doc at the end of each lesson to re-study them. Our conversation classes are unstructured (I know Simona prepares some topics, but sometimes I get distracted easily and we end up talking about something else entirely) - which is what I like, as it gives me a chance to adapt the lesson to my needs. I have been learning German with Simona for over a year now, and I can already see the progress I have made, and I hope to continue making more!

Simona is an excellent instructor. Plus, she is a wonderful, young woman. Very helpful. I enjoy working with her.

I forgot my lesson. Sorry.

Simona was very patient and she encouraged me to speak regardless of my basic skills. Most importantly, she made me feel at ease - I made many mistakes and Simona was able to draw me out and encourage me to talk. She demonstrates a perfect balance of listening and assessing my personal goals. She also guides the conversation with constructs and provides vocabulary and study guides that I can remember at my stage of learning. She uses the class time constructively and I HIGHLY recommend Simona.