Hey, There's My Old Language School!

It' been said "The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires." True dat. But to that I'd like to add the corollary "A lousy teacher repels." I will never claim to have been the best student in the world, but in my first German school (circa late 2008), I was solidly middle-of-the-pack, and the teacher was wonderful. Moving from the long-term hotel to our apartment interrupted my classes, so when I resumed I went to a different school (white building, pictured) with a curriculum that promised practical "everyday language" usage and instruction-- sounded good. Even under ideal circumstances German is a difficult tongue to master (16 different ways to say "the," 16 different ways to say "a/an," and 32 ways to change adjective endings-- and that's first term stuff folks; it only gets harder from there), but this teacher was just... awful. For a start, it was her first-ever teaching gig, plus she she was from Berlin, openly despised the local dialect and was determined to teach "proper German." This teacher so turned me off on the language of the country I'm living in that I chose not to pick up any further classes, even though B's work would've picked up the hefty tab. In the meantime my "everyday German" proficiency has slowly crept up-- I have to get through my daily routine here after all-- but I doubt I'll ever be fluent, and that's a regret.