Barbara Y.

Hi, I am Barbara and I am native German. In 2013 I started German Conversation sessions and it highlighted to me just how quickly you can improve a language and give speaking confidence to someone by getting the pronunciation near correct. This is especially important now with the new 2026 GCSE's curriculum, where students are given a new text to read out loud and they have to navigate German phonics. In fact one of my recent 1-1 clients was at a working grade 7 with a predicted grade 8 and scored the highly sought after 9 in the new GCSE. I am very proud of my clients’ achievement.

I have lived in the UK with my English husband for the past 26 years. Our two children were raised bilingual by me and my eldest has passed the German GCSE with an A grade in year 9.

My flexibility and patience from my previous job as a professional pet photographer comes in very handy.

Current and previous clients include GCSE students / A-Level students / University students and adults with pre-existing knowledge of German.

Back in 2013 my sessions were with private school primary school children whose parents relocated to England after spending some time in Germany/German speaking countries.

Since then, I have taught many GCSE students, who all managed to gain at least one grade better than their predicted grade and helped many more clients gaining confidence in speaking German.

I tutor online via Zoom on a one-to-one basis, which is tailored to my clients’ individual needs. These could be to get pronunciation closer to native German for the GCSE German or A-Level oral exams or to help adults who want to extend either their business German with a focus on their pronunciation and cultural knowledge or brush up their German prior to going on holiday or tutoring alongside the Goethe Institute courses (up to B2).

Below is some feedback from recent years:

"Barbara is an incredible tutor. Patient, attentive, responsive and a good sense of humour.
Our son felt at ease with her and said he had learned more with her in their limited number of sessions than in the months before. He gained in confidence and knowledge, and felt he had a stronger and more comprehensive grasp of German after his sessions with Barbara. Thank you. Hoping we can start conversational classes next term!"

“Barbara really helped improve my confidence and abilities in all 4 areas of the exam (listening, reading, writing & speaking). She had amazing resources and exercises, which prepared me extremely well for the exams, and because of this, I came out of all my German exams feeling confident I had done well. German was by far my best GCSE and I was able to get a grade 9. Thank you very much!”

“It is with much sadness that my weekly German lessons draw to a close with Barbara. She has been teaching me business German for the past 18 months and we have built up a lovely working relationship. In my role as a recruitment consultant a lot of my clients are German and Barbara has helped me with not only conversation but also contracts, job descriptions and such like that help me understand my clients so much more. My clients also appreciate me speaking German to them sometimes. Thanks Barbara, I strongly recommend you as an excellent German teacher across all areas of the language, speaking, writing, understanding and listening.”

“Barbara is an absolutely amazing, dedicated and kind native German teacher. We had lived in Germany for a few years when my daughter was younger, and although her secondary school did not offer German as an option, we knew we wanted her to continue with it. Being on the SEN register, it made sense to stick to a language that she had some familiarity with. We started with one online lesson a week, after school, and then as GCSE's loomed, Barbara was kind enough to swap to two daytime lessons, that my daughter logged on at school to participate in. Barbara was kind and patient, and catered to my daughter's unique needs and ways of learning. She was flexible and extremely dedicated. Today we received our daughter's GCSE grade 9! We're grinning like Chesire cats! Thank you Barbara!”

“As a native German speaker Barbara has helped my sons develop excellent spoken German, a skill they are often complimented on and which has helped them gain excellent results in their exams.”

"As well as being an excellent technical tutor, Barbara is also friendly, accommodating, and encouraging, and my sons are always happy to see her.”