Success Stories

I always love to hear success stories from my students on their rocky path to perfect English and I’d like to share one with you today – from Marion.

I have been teaching Marion from Stuttgart for a few years now, first in-person and then for online breakfast lessons early Tuesday mornings when the pandemic hit us. Her level when she started was low intermediate.

Apart from her job at a medical publishing house, Marion is passionate about lace-making (Klöppeln). I was fascinated to learn all about it in one of her first lessons when she excitedly showed me all her wonderful exhibits whilst practicing English tenses at the same time! She nearly forgot it was a grammar lesson 😊. I wonder if she still has the big poster we made. Always willing to leave her comfort zone, I was very proud of her when she decided to join an international online lace-making group so she could practice all she had learned in English about her great hobby. And last Saturday she gave an online presentation in English of a special technique with participants from South Africa, USA, Canada, Great Britain, Island, Spain, Netherland and Belgium. Because she had the courage, it was no problem for her to ask the other lacemakers for special phrases, to repeat what they said and basically help her out. This has helped her in her job where she now joins international working groups and finds she has the courage to contribute more and more.

I knew she had arrived when she said, “They should be glad I speak English!”.

Absolutely – never forget that you are speaking English because it is better than your conversation partners’ German!

I just love this sample of her work.