Nick is a fantastic teacher – he helped me learn Dutch when I first arrived in the Netherlands and has just guided me through inburgering. I took a group course, then ten one-to-one sessions. Most recently I did the inburgering course… so far I’ve had the results of three exams – all 10s! I wholeheartedly recommend Dutch & Such and Nick for anyone who wants to learn Dutch, improve their Dutch or get their inburgeringsdiploma.
Nick is fantastic. He’s very knowledgable, fun and helpful. Having studied the Dutch language somewhere else, I know it myself that Nick is easily the best Dutch teacher one will ever encounter. He not only puts the language study into perspective, but also gives us opportunity to practice and exercise. Highly recommend!
Nick is the most helpful speaker of Dutch I’ve come across: he is clear, paced neither too slow nor too fast, and enthusiastic about ‘Dutchness’, not just about language-learning. His classes were effective, and steered the right course between ‘Following the Book’ and ‘Developing Useful Tangents’. A really good teacher. It delivered what I wanted.
Nick Walker at Dutch & Such is a diamond. He provides high quality, effective and extremely personable service as a language teacher. Even if you consider yourself to have little or no language skills, he is the man for you. Each lesson is non-threatening, encouraging, structured and creative. I’ve taken more than one course with Nick, as I progressed through higher levels of understanding. He has great skill in making students feel comfortable and safe – even when you are making mistakes. Perhaps most important of all, lessons at Dutch & Such are fun.
Thank you Nick, for making the hard easy, the strange logical… and for making us feel that we do belong here… and for all the fun!
Nick has been a great inspiration for me. He is a creative and very skilled teacher. He uses modern methods in his work. The conversations we have had during our sessions has been inspiring and interesting. While learning the language you also learn a lot about the culture, geography, history, politics and the people. Nick taught me Dutch in a sustainable, fun, talented and interesting way. If you choose to work with Nick I can only congratulate you.
Learning a new language was always going to be tricky for me however Nick quickly structured my sessions around improvement without necessarily mastery; flexibility but with discipline; and enjoyment without losing sight of the objectives. My language skills improved markedly under his tutelage although I am confident that I will never be seen as one of his star students! I would recommend the highly personable and professional Nick to anyone wishing to learn Dutch.
I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know how good I think the course has been and how much I enjoy the lessons. I feel that I have learnt a lot and made progress, not just in linguistic terms but also with regard to my understanding of Dutch culture and way of life. I also feel that ‘Nederlands in Actie’ is the first text book I have used, which I will happily revisit to carry on learning the language.
Nick is a very friendly, patient and motivated teacher. Lessons are structured with grammatical as well as interactive topics. It is fun and entertaining learning Dutch in a small group. Nick makes Dutch easier!
Sorry this note is not in Dutch, but I wanted to say that I really enjoyed the summer school classes I took with you this summer (June 2010). I especially enjoyed the Martin Bril gedichten (poems) and the klein mopje (little joke) about hemel en hel (heaven and hell). I loved the Martin Bril poetry so much, I downloaded all of his poems available on his website and I am reading them all now (it’s 70 pages of poetry!) His poetry is so good that I want to translate it to share with my English speaking friends! He reminds me very much of an American poet named Billy Collins. I also have loved the “question games” that you hand out – we play them at my studio. I know I am very lucky to work at a studio where they are happy to play Dutch games with me! And the brainstorming game is such a great way to learn new vocabulary – I make them play that with me all the time. Thanks again for everything – taking your classes always makes everything much clearer to me and a real pleasure!
Thanks Nick for being a great teacher, I really enjoyed the classes I managed to attend and even with the modest amount of homework it has made a huge difference to my ability to understand what people are talking about!
I took lessons from Nick from January to June this year (2013), in order to prepare for the Inburgeringsexamen (which I passed in July). Nick is a patient and skilled teacher, and his classes are structured and organised. Having previously taken a few lessons elsewhere, I found the fact that he is a native speaker of both English and Dutch to be extremely advantageous in terms of being able to clearly explain the nuances of a complex language. Perhaps most importantly, Nick’s classes are fun, and his teaching style constantly motivates you to want to learn the language. I’d highly recommend Nick (and already have to several friends) to anyone looking to learn Dutch.
I had the pleasure of learning from Nick Walker at Dutch and Such this past year. From September through April 2011, Nick provided private lessons for me as I prepared for the NT2 Staatsexamen. I passed the NT2 exam in May 2011. Teachers returning to the classroom can be a very tough audience on other teachers. As a teacher of English myself with over 26 years experience working in high schools, I am impressed by Nick’s abilities as a teacher. He knows his subject, employs a range of methods to get students talking and his professional, positive approach instilled the confidence needed to really start talking. Although my requirements for the course were widely varied, Nick’s dedication to meeting the needs of his learners was always present. Regardless of the range of questions I posed, Nick’s clear, positive and encouraging manner of explaining provided me with the clear understanding of the language and its use that I needed to make progress in acquiring Dutch. I’ve taken many Dutch classes from a wide range of teachers over the years in my attempts to improve my Dutch. While appreciating the enthusiasm of other teachers, Nick’s unique position as a native speaker of both English and Dutch enables him to provide clear explanations using the subtleties and innuendo of English far beyond those offered by the many other teachers with whom I’ve worked in the past. His explanation of idiom, expressions, and actual use of the language could be explained in terms of how a native-English speaker uses language rather than an approximate understanding afforded by non-native speakers of English. It is this combination of his own language skills, enthusiastic instruction and responsiveness to the needs of his students that distinguished the lessons I had at Dutch and Such from other language schools in Amsterdam. I hope you, too, have the good experience of learning Dutch with Nick Walker at Dutch and Such.