THE thinking method platform

(HOPEFULLY) launching SOON….

Welcome to the Thinking Method Platform, where independent teachers who want to learn to write Thinking Method style courses can upload their material for public use, and for my free and personalised feedback, contributions and guidance. Or at least that’s the plan!

The Platform has been a long time in the launching for one simple reason - people grossly underestimate the amount of work involved in creating one of these beauties and, more often than not, undertake the task with erroneous motivations. For this reason, after being on the brink of launch for over a year, this Platform is now only ‘hopefully’ launching soon! That all depends on the new writers.

Speaking of those erroneous motivations, I must unequivocally state the nature of this relationship. Whoever appears wanting to create a new course should not do so with the idea that they are helping or giving something back to Language Transfer. This does not accurately reflect the onus of this collaboration, and leads to wasted energies. The Platform is there to help you to create your Thinking Method course, only once that help is administered does your course help anybody else. With the Platform, I’m (Mihalis) not asking for your help, but rather offering my own.

In spite of how much I emphasise all the work this requires, I still get submissions from people who find themselves having to admit to me that they didn’t complete the guidebook, and/or that they’ve only gone through their own classes a few times. This is a shocking level of disrespect considering all of the time and effort I invested into writing the guidebook. It’s often been the case that my own work commenting on a new script is evidently more work than what went into creating the script in the first place. Before thinking about submitting to the Platform, any new writer needs to have taken their course writing as far as they can by themselves, respecting both the work I put into writing the Guidebook, and the intensive concentration I need to comment properly on a script (often for a language I don’t speak). The open offer for my efforts made through this Platform is indeed a very generous one, any new integrant needs to appreciate that from the get-go.

Apologies for these blunt words, but they are a last ditch attempt to attract the right kind of people to this space. Now that that’s done, here’s some more about how this thing supposed to work!…

My interaction with new course writers will now be public by default. Supporters and learners alike will be able to see the (otherwise behind-the-scenes) work I do on other people’s material, and all that work will be logged so that it can be used by new course writers for inspiration and self-training. When teachers upload improved versions of their lessons, all of this remains catalogued, and each course writer can learn from the evolution of others’ material. Nothing is wasted, and we’re no longer reliant on just one teacher. If someone disappears, it’s no problem - everything remains on the platform, publicly available for everyone to use and for a new writer to continue creating from the next track. This removes the question of promises from the equation. If you need to pump yourself up and convince yourself you’ll do this then great, but please, do not feel the need to convince me first!

Uploaders will be able to offer themselves for private classes (paid or free) through the platform in order to test and practice their material. The paid option makes it more plausible for teachers to make Thinking Method course writing their main full-time focus! For this reason, Language Transfer will take no cut from these private classes.

Through this live public experience, falling somewhere between training and co-creation, the courses shared here should resemble forever more the original Thinking Method courses and hopefully, even surpass them. Even though the onus is always on the new course writer, I won’t be holding back with my years of applied expertise. I will contribute my ideas freely to all new courses as if they were my own, and this paired with a bright and curious native speaker can lead to much more interesting content.

The Platform solves many important problems that kept arising when I was trying to build an LT team, and also helps the project respond to all that insatiable desire for new material that it is impossible for just one person, or even a small team, to satisfy. This means that I am no longer looking to build an LT team, and the ‘competition’ described in the Guidebook is now a submission to join this Platform. As such, the submission to join the Platform is the first five tracks of your course plus a panorama/visual representation of the main framework of the entire course. None of this material is likely to be final as it’s all part of a learning process, and much critique should be expected. If such critique would demotivate you rather than interest you, please do not apply to join the Platform. Whilst the classes submitted are very unlikely to be final, it’s still important that learners take their classes as far as they can, practicing and applying the principals of the method shared in the Guidebook, as if the classes were to be final.

The Platform needs more material to launch, so if it’s your dream to create a Thinking Method course, get writing! But please do remember, one last time: the onus is on the new writer to take their own self-training as far as they can using the free Thinking Method Guidebook. This means not expecting to receive any personal training until having generated material based on the study of the guidebook. Once the prospective Platform member has done that, they’ll enjoy my full focus and attention but I’m only one person, and I need to use my Language Transfer time very wisely with folk who respect it, and I can no longer give my personal attention where it is not fruitful and represents a loss to the project as a whole. I appreciate genuine understanding of this situation and the complicated position that I find myself in.

Read the Thinking Method Guidebook before and/or whilst writing your course, and then get in touch about making your submission to join the Platform!