Tutor profile - Sönke

Sönke is a native speaker and has a BA and a MA degree. Having first gained experience in teaching German while working as a British Council Foreign Language Assistant in East Devon, he decided to follow a career in teaching German at secondary and tertiary level. After finishing his degrees at the Christian-Albrechts-Universität, Kiel, Germany, he moved to Devon and studied at Exeter University, St Luke's School of Education. Most importantly for language learners, he is a qualified teacher with a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) in teaching secondary German (with French and Geography).

He has taught German in schools for over 20 years, which included working with individuals, small and class-size groups of all ages at GCSE/IGCSE, A Level/IBDP level. Sönke is also a current Assessment Associate for Pearson/Edexcel, an IoLET Affiliate Member of the Chartered Institute of Linguists and a Supporter Member of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting, studying towards a TransDip.

'Born and bred' in the north of Germany, you will not struggle to understand his accent. He speaks - what many people refer to as - „Hochdeutsch” - (Standard German) as spoken in/around/north of Hanover. However, you might notice that he tends to say „Hamburch” rather than „Hamburg”. And of course, he tends to stretch his vowels - all part of being an „echter Norddeutscher”.

The 2017/2018 examination season was yet another very successful year for his tutees. He does not only have a 100% pass rate; all his A Level students outperformed their predicted grades (based on their 'Mocks') by two grades and his GCSE/IGCSE students improved their predicted grades by at least three grades/digits. Many of them outperformed their target grades (where possible) and one student improved by five grades/digits compared to her predicted '4' ('Mocks').