About us
Toronto

Goethe-Institut Toronto Photo: Goethe-Institut/Tobias Wong

Located in the heart of the city, the Goethe-Institut Toronto is the meeting point and partner for anyone who is interested in contemporary German art and culture as well as the German language. In 2012, together with the institutes in Montréal and Ottawa, we celebrated our 60th anniversary in Canada.

We offer extensive language courses and examinations for beginners and those with more advanced levels of German. In our fully-equipped, multimedia classrooms, not only do we provide an understanding of the German language, we also place an emphasis on contemporary German culture. Our language students get free access to our library as well as invitations to a number of cultural events.

For those outside of Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa, we offer special online courses as well as examinations centres with our partners in Calgary, Vancouver and Winnipeg. Worldwide, the Goethe-Instituts’ language-learning system is modeled after the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) for language acquisition. We also connect adults and youth with courses at our institutions in Germany.

A high quality of standards and topicality in our teaching methods are important to us. As a result, we offer a variety of extensive workshops, teacher training seminars and stipendiums for Canadian teachers of German as a foreign language at schools and universities in five provinces: Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. Along with the cultural program of the Educational Services, we inspire students to learn German, especially at our partner schools.

Through a spectrum of cultural events, the Goethe-Institut has been leading continuous dialogue and cultural exchanges between German and Canadian artists over more than 60 years, presenting German culture abroad and providing a contemporary look at the country. We work together with artists and experts in film, new media, visual arts, theatre, dance, music, literature, architecture and the environment. In addition to our residencies for German artists and authors, we also organize special tours to Germany for Canadians.

Most of our events take place at our Goethe-Institut Community Space, however, special events such as “Goethe Films” or “Goethe at TOPS” happen at our Canadian partners' venue spaces.

Goethe-Institut Toronto © Goethe-Insitut Toronto 2019 The library serves as a resource hub for German language learning and teaching as well as up-to-date information on social, political and cultural life in Germany. Access to our media collection, which focuses on special themes such as German architecture and film, are available through a small yearly membership fee. Our special DVD Film Archive offers over 500 documentaries and films for educational and cultural oranizations in Canada through our inter-lending service. Members of our Onleihe (eLibrary), even if they are not located in Toronto, are able to borrow eBooks and other electronic documents.

The work of the Goethe-Institut Toronto is integrated into the North American region with seven US Goethe-Instituts in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Washington (regional head office), together with its three Canadian institutes in Montréal, Ottawa and Toronto as well as in Mexico City and a liaison office in Havana.

The Goethe-Institut is the official cultural institution of the Republic of Germany. With 158 institutes in 98 countries, we share information about German culture and language with Canadians. In 2022, the “Goethe-Institut e.V.” celebrated its 70th anniversary. The Canadian institutes were founded in 1962.