Hartnackschule

This is My first school in Berlin, literally. I spent about 8 months here. It took me awhile, but finally found the time to write a review for this.

The first six months was the Integration course plus orientation course. At the beginning 1-2 months was the difficult, it not only about the study, also about adjusting the new language and teaching style here. it does make people quite frustrating. Well, Every beginning is difficult though. My teacher since the the beginning to the whole course end, never really spoke other languages but German. Which is good. it was difficult to understand at the beginning, but it does help me to improve my listening and speaking so much faster. I remember i was really angry couple times about the school, the classmate or the teaching method. but I do find my way and get used to the way how thing works there. Even we got the substitute teacher sometime, my main teacher was good. I considered myself quite lucky. In the end, I actually have a really good time and all my friends here was really surprise how my german could improve so much is such a short time.

Something I have to say it, I also have some good friends their job are teaching. I do know how much to difficult to teaching an adult than a kid. Most of the time adult has too much pride and too rely on the teacher. As a student should find the way in balance, see what is the really important thing, and made the right call. Of course, The teacher is also the problem. sometime when the methods really doesn't fit you, better just switch to others, instead of waiting.

One other thing i have to mention from my own experience. Most of the students come here just for study, but it doesn't mean everyone will be nice and open minded. Some of them bring their own discrimination to this country and bully other students. This school is really stand up for students that who bully and prejudiced. They really care about this. Some schools even they noticed the problem will simply ignore it. For me, beside teachers and students, also the school environment is a really important part of the study.

The last two month, I took the B2 lever class. Went to different class. It was really different. The atmosphere is not as good as before. And I also met one teacher really arrogant and like mocking mistakes of students. Maybe it wasn't suppose to mean that way, but it does made me feel like this. I didn't like the methods of that teacher so i did switch my class and found the teacher with the methods that fit me better.

The thing is I think most the schools are the same. There are good teachers or bad teachers, just like people, they are also different, people got different definitions about good and bad. It really hard to just judge something through reading. After all, it's really depend on what kind of school you looking for. For me, although the price of the school is not really cheap, there are still some parts that I like about in this school. which I don't think other schools might have the same.

Here is a copy of the letter that I sent to the Hartnackschule after my experience there. I had already posted this review but it got deleted along with a lot of other negative reviews.

To whom it may concern:

The purpose of this letter is to file a complaint and bring to your attention some issues I experienced while attending a class at the Hartnackschule.

I switched to the Hartnackschule from another language school following the recommendation of a teacher at the Goethe Institute. However, after starting classes, I was surprised to discover that the teacher I was assigned to repeatedly insults, demeans, and disrespects his students in class. This in turn causes an extremely tense, miserable class environment and of course discourages participation and learning. I would honestly never expect such teacher behavior in a private language school for adults. After speaking with some other students in my class I found that I was not the only one who was unhappy - - several students felt the same way and expressed that they would not be coming back to Hartnackschule after this experience. I shared my experiences with my husband (who was also a student at Hartnackschule but in a different level with a different teacher, who happened to be excellent). He asked some of the other students in his class who had
been in other classes at Hartnackschule if they had had similar experiences in their other classes. Several students in his class mentioned that they, too, had been in other classrooms where similar treatment occurred. One student said that in his previous class a teacher had actually brought a student to tears in the middle of class. We are not children; there is simply no excuse for this kind of treatment.

After one week I realized that it was counter-productive to continue attending this teacher's class. Before switching to Hartnackschule I had already attended several months of intensive language classes at another school with various other teachers and I was very motivated and excited about learning the German language, but after a week in this teacher's class I almost wanted to give up learning German entirely. When I asked at Hartnackschule's front desk if it would be possible to cancel my registration they said no, but they said they could put me in another teacher's class if I preferred. My next assigned teacher was much better, but knowing that so many of the students at the Hartnackschule had had similar experiences and done nothing about it I felt that someone needed to inform the school formally. Hopefully the school will be able to take the proper actions to ensure that instances like this are not repeated, and that students are treated
fairly and with respect by all teachers at all times.

I will also follow up by posting this online so that other current and prospective students can be aware of these issues and act accordingly.

Thank you for your time and attention.