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German Coaching
You're an expat or immigrant living in the DACH region seeking to feel more at ease and at home? You want to increase your language proficiency before moving to a German-speaking country? You frequently interact with German-speaking professionals and want to strengthen your communication and intercultural skills? You're dealing with speaking anxieties?
I've got you. All 1:1 coaching services described on this website are also available to German learners - online via Zoom.
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Hi! I'm Petra, a certified language coach from the Ruhr Area in Germany. Lovely to have you here.
Brain-informed coaching
My work brings together language learning, life coaching, and practical neuroscience.
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Communicating in another language and working on your language skills brings up topics not typically addressed in traditional language teaching, such as staying motivated, fear of failure, and negative beliefs ("I'm just not good at languages").
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This is why I use methods and techniques that build both linguistic and mental strength and flexibility.
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What sets language coaching apart from traditional teaching is that it allows you to fully focus on your individual goals, choose how we work on them, and make adjustments throughout the process whenever necessary - instead of someone telling you what you should learn. In short, language coaching is an active collaboration between you and me that gets you there faster.
The coaching process
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In our first meeting, we identify your goals, namely, structural goals (grammar, word order, etc.) and application goals (communicating in specific situations, developing skills such as intonation or formal/informal speech, expanding your vocabulary, etc.). We also talk about how you would like to work on these goals with me. If you aren't that experienced with language learning yet, I'll happily make suggestions based on my experience and what works well for my other coachees.
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In our coaching sessions, we typically work on two of your current goals and speak as much German as you feel comfortable. We may also work on ways out of motivational or learning blocks.
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About every four weeks, we take a moment to reflect on your language learning journey - what has been working well, what would you like to change?
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During onboarding, you will get access to your personal coachee portal where you will find notes from each session and any resources we create, for example, overviews of specific grammatical structures, sample conversations, and so on.
My Coaching Services
About Release
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In Release, we solve your anxiety around speaking German in front of others from the inside out.
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In the first session, I'll show you techniques that allow you to step out of the anxiety spiral. Used preventively, these also teach your brain to associate a pleasant feeling with speaking German moving forward. Then, we'll examine the important role that anxiety has played in your life.
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In session two, we'll have a longer coaching conversation in English that deepens the change we set in motion in session one. To do so, I'm using coaching that addresses the unconscious mind - brain magic in action!
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In our third session, we'll do a brief check-in. How are you feeling about speaking German now? What has changed? If necessary, we'll go back into a second, shorter coaching conversation. For the rest of the session, we'll prep you for your next conversation in German with mini-simulations and logistical preparations.
I also offer conversation sessions!
You've got a presentation coming up or an interview (congrats!) and want to practice everything before the big moment? Or you're going on the next business trip and want to activate your spoken German to impress with your networking skills? For situations like these, you've got my conversation sessions.
What is included? Feedback on your grammar and phrasing (plus error correction, of course), notes to all sessions, and optional pronunciation work.
Communicating successfully in a foreign language is not about having perfect grammar and an endless vocabulary. It’s about making human connections. Let me show you.
From teaching to coaching
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I've been in the language learning field for more than fifteen years. My journey began as a teacher and professor of German in the United States where I lived for ten years. (Came to become an academic, stayed a while because I enjoyed teaching.) In 2019, I moved back to Germany and worked as an English and German teacher for adult professionals for a few years, until I got immensely frustrated about being unable to address my clients' individual needs and goals to the extent I would have loved to.
At the time, I was dating someone who was highly invested in personal development and who recommended a couple of life coaching podcasts. This turned out to be a huge eye-opener for me who had no clue what life coaching was about or what its many different methods have to offer. Aside from learning a lot about myself, I remembered that I had stumbled upon something called language coaching back in the US during a "How am I going to make money after I've moved back" brainstorming session. And the rest is history.
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I became a certified Neurolanguage Coach© in the summer of 2022 and that was also the start of my lasting fascination with our brain and practical neuroscience. More specifically with (self-guided) neuroplasticity and memory consolidation - the ability to retrain and rewire our brain to effect positive change, to leave unhelpful patterns of thinking and reacting behind. In September 2024, I became an NLP Practitioner to increase my coaching toolbox.
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Why all that? Language acquisition is never just about learning grammatical structures and words. It shows who we are, and how we think about ourselves and others. It shines a spotlight on our strengths as well as our insecurities and challenges. That is why I'm pursuing a holistic approach to language coaching.
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For more information, get in touch (hello@petravolkhausen.de)