We characterise the Weyl-Hörmander symbol classes S(M, g) via the growth of the action of the corresponding ΨDOs on time-frequency shifts of a single test function. For this purpose, we introduce a geometric short-time Fourier transform which is well-suited for the analysis of S(M, g). We define new modulation spaces and achieve the characterisation of the Weyl-Hörmander classes by showing that they are intersections of such modulation spaces suitable for the time-frequency characterisation.