Located in the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the new member school is the latest to join the network including more than 160 affiliated private language schools in 52 countries.

“What we found always outstanding was the dedication to teacher training and the quality orientation”

The school is joining as it seeks to “improve and enjoy teaching and to develop quality in education”.

“What we found always outstanding was the dedication to teacher training and the quality orientation in education with International House,” said director Michael Rönitz, adding GoAcademy! is aiming to become a leading training institutes and developer of teacher training.

“I am sure our students will appreciate and enjoy the high educational standards in all languages and in all IH schools in the world.”

Since establishing GoAcademy! with his wife Catherine in 1990, Rönitz has grown an operation of two classrooms to a two-building campus in central Düsseldorf with 25 classrooms.

The school offers a range of language courses, with English and German as the most sought after.

Along with general German classes, it “concentrates on medical German for doctors and medical staff and on the pathway to German universities”, as well as testing options as an officially recognised testing centre.

“It means a lot for us having joined IH this year as the organisation focuses on quality language training, train the trainer seminars, and international cooperation,” Rönitz noted.

During the coronavirus pandemic, GoAcademy! has had to shift from face to face tuition to online training to hybrid to pure online several times, he continued.

“We had to learn to live with constant changes, to adjust, to find the best possible solution, to adjust and to re-adjust. But that’s how we have developed best practices in hybrid training.”

Combining face to face and online methods “demands a lot of skills, technological equipment, teacher training and team counselling”, Rönitz explained.

“But it was worth the hard work, and with our integrated learning management platform, we have reached a new level of language training. This is just one way to cope with it, but there are others as well.”