IB Diploma · Years 12-13
IB German tutors
Language B at SL or HL, assessed across receptive, productive and interactive skills, with HL adding two literary works. The individual oral carries more weight than students expect and is routinely the least rehearsed part of the course.
- USD 30-36 per hour
- One-to-one, online
- Free 1-hour trial class
What IB Diploma actually demands
Six subjects plus Theory of Knowledge, the Extended Essay and CAS. The workload is the defining feature, and the Internal Assessments, coursework worth a substantial share of each subject grade, are what most often slip.
A highly systematic language, which cuts both ways: the grammar is learnable as a system, but cases and word order are unforgiving and cannot be approximated.
Where IB German students lose marks
- The case system half-learned, so adjective endings and articles are guessed
- Word order in subordinate clauses producing errors that obscure otherwise good content
- Separable verbs and modal constructions avoided in writing, which limits the range that earns marks
- Speaking rehearsed as memorised answers that collapse when the examiner asks a follow-up
Is this the right subject at this level?
Students taking German at any level, and especially those whose vocabulary is strong but whose accuracy in cases and word order is capping the grade. It rewards students who are willing to learn grammar as a system, because German repays that investment more directly than most languages do.
What it costs
USD 30-36 per 60-minute one-to-one lesson at IB Diploma, the same rate in every city we teach in. Billed monthly against lessons actually taught, with no prepaid blocks and no minimum commitment.
Paired lessons (2 students) are USD 21-25 per student. Small group lessons (up to 6 students) are USD 15-18 per student. What each format is good for is here.
How we teach it
One-to-one, online, with a shared whiteboard. The first thing we establish is the exact syllabus the student is entered for: schools do not always publish the version they actually enter, and preparing for the wrong paper structure wastes a term.
After that the work is diagnostic: a past paper under timed conditions, marked together against the published scheme, to find out where the marks are genuinely going. That is almost always more useful than covering the syllabus again more slowly. The full process is here.
German: questions parents ask
Why do cases cause so much trouble?
Because they affect articles, adjectives and pronouns simultaneously, so a partial understanding produces errors in every sentence. German rewards learning the case system properly as a system: once it is secure, a great deal of the rest follows.
What limits marks for range?
Avoidance. Students who steer around separable verbs, subordinate clauses and modal constructions write accurate but simple German, which caps the range marks. Deliberately practising the harder structures is what lifts the grade.
Is German harder than French or Spanish?
It is more systematic, which makes it harder at the start and easier later. The grammar is unforgiving but consistent, so students who invest early often overtake peers who chose a language that felt easier initially.