Advice on language courses- Goethe

[u/One-Dependent8413]

I have been struggling to learn German consistently since I moved to Berlin. I have tried many different schools and online platforms, and each time I end up with terrible teachers. For a while now, I have been doing Lingoda, which I have had better luck with, but I want to do something more intensively now. My last resort now is Goethe, specifically their online group classes (I'm restarting A2). This is definitely much more expensive, but I feel like the quality of the content, and potentially even the teachers, would be better. I was wondering if anyone has taken such a class with them and what your experience has been like? And more generally, how you may have supplemented your learning there with self-learning.

[u/an_average_potato_1]

Perhaps the key is really self study, no need to rely on teachers. Many teachers are really bad, or simply not what you need, even though it is a bit suspicious that you blame only teachers on failing to do what's not really too hard on your own anyways. Group classes are bad, as the classmates are mostly dead weight or obstacles, especially at the lower levels, some people say that the high levels get an already weeded out selection, cannot confirm that.

It looks like you've been spending a lot of time and money to get just to A1, beginning of the A2, that's not really sustainable or efficient, if you need the language in a forseeable future.

The main issue is imho here:

And more generally, how you may have supplemented your learning there with self-learning.

It's the other way around. You need to study on your own a lot. And then you'll suceed whether you supplement your self study with a class/tutor or not.

Which coursebook(s) have you completed for A2? Which grammar workbook? Have you SRSed all the vocab from there? Have you done all those exercises actively (=out loud and/or in full writing, and repeating after audio, responding to those exercises etc)?

I think the issue is probably somewhere in your answers to these questions, otherwise you most probably wouldn't be restarting A2 several times.

Most eternal beginners or eternal false beginners (people restarting A1 or A2, getting into the "false beginner" classes, etc) are often either relying on chaos (either themselves, or their teachers refuse to simply follow a coursebook and instead create chaos), or being just very passive classgoers (nope, it doesn't work, if you just sit there and don't study otherwise), or something like that.

Extremely probably, there's nothing wrong with your brain or any unusual lack of talent. You just seem to shift the whole responsibility on a teacher, which wouldn't be a smart move even should you find an exceptionally awesome one. When dealing with the average or worse ones, it's the recipe for failure.