Claudia Windfuhr
Since 1980, I have been working in the field of German language instruction and administration, first in France, then in Germany and Korea, and now in the USA. I have taught at the university of Düsseldorf and the Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in Seoul. I conducted classes at the Goethe Institutes of Seoul and San Francisco. Since 1991, I have been teaching German, French and introduction to world languages in a public middle school in Lafayette. Some of the most exciting positions I have had were with the Seoul Olympic Organizing Committee and with the Institut für Internationale Kommunikation in Düsseldorf.
I was given two DAAD scholarships to study in France and I received a Licence en Lettres Modernes (BA) from the Université de Nantes. After my return to Germany, I received the Staatsexamen (MA in German as a foreign language, Romance and English Languages and Literatures) from the Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf and later, my teaching credential from San Francisco State University.
I have been working for the German School of San Francisco since 1990, first as the AP teacher, then the principal, and now as the academic consultant. With other German School teachers in the USA, I published a Handbook for Better Teaching Practices in the German Classroom. In 2000 I was asked by the National Task Force for German to develop a national exam (Zentrale Deutschprüfung (ZDP8-USA) for students in the middle grades. From 2002 to 2008, I collaborated with the German School of Connecticut on this exam.
At home, I only speak German to my son and it’s a lot of fun. It is my greatest reward to see our students grow and, after some years of instruction, to have a conversation with them in German!