Most parents in Accra choose a German course the way you choose anything unfamiliar: by price, by who someone else recommended, and by whichever place answers the phone. Here are the questions that actually predict whether your child will still be learning German in a year.
We run one of these schools, so of course we think well of our own answers. Ask these of us too.
1. How many children are in the group?
This is the question that matters most and the one almost nobody asks. Ask for the number, not the word “small”.
The reason is arithmetic. In an hour with twelve children, each child speaks for roughly four minutes. With four children, about fifteen. Over a year that is the difference between a child who can hold a conversation and one who can fill in worksheets.
2. Is there a continuous course, or only exam preparation?
In Accra you will find places that sell children’s German exams without running a continuous children’s course. That is a real gap and it catches families out, because they book an exam and then discover there is nowhere to prepare properly.
Ask plainly: does a group for this age run every week, all year?
3. Are children taught separately from adults?
A nine year old and a working adult can be at the same level and still need entirely different lessons. Mixing them looks efficient on a timetable and works badly in a room. Ask how the age groups are divided.
4. How long is a lesson, really?
Language schools traditionally count in units of 45 minutes and call them hours. That is not dishonest, it is convention, but it means two schools quoting the same price for an hour may be selling you noticeably different amounts of time. Ask for the number of minutes.
5. Who teaches, and what happens if they leave?
Ask who will actually be in the room, what their training is, and whether it is the same person each week. Continuity matters more for children than for adults, because a great deal of what a teacher knows about a child is not written down anywhere.
6. What happens if my child is at a different level from the group?
A good answer describes what they do about it. A bad answer is that it will be fine. For bilingual children this comes up constantly, because a child can speak at one level and read at another, and a school that has not thought about that will put them in the wrong room.
7. Can we try a lesson first?
A school that is confident about its lessons will let your child sit in one. This also tells you the most important thing, which no brochure can: does your child want to come back?
Two things worth ignoring
A big building. Rooms do not teach children.
Promises about speed. Anyone who tells you how many months your child needs without first hearing them speak is guessing. Reasonable ranges exist, which we wrote about in what the German levels really mean, but a specific promise made before an assessment is a sales technique.
And one thing worth watching at home
After a month, is your child using German outside the lesson? One word, one joke, one complaint. That is the real measure, and it appears long before any certificate.
Our answers
Four learners maximum. Continuous weekly groups for ages three to five and for children and teenagers, all year. Children, teenagers and adults taught separately. Lessons of a full 60 minutes. All teaching by Vanessa, a German native speaker with a Master of Education. If no group fits your child’s level, they begin one to one at the same price.
Current group times are on the timetable and the prices are published. The trial lesson is free and you decide afterwards. We are in Airport West, Accra, and you can write to us in German or in English.
