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 tend to grossly underestimate the amount of work involved in creating one of these beauties and, more often than not, undertake the task with erroneous motivations. To nip these problems in the bud, there’s some things that need to be stated very clearly:

-The Thinking Method is not the Socratic approach. The Q&A system we learn with, building sentences in real time, is not specific to Language Transfer, what is is the method within the approach, which I (maybe ironically) called “The Thinking Method”. This is what new writers need to study with the free guidebook, rather than the Socratic approach in itself. Just having done LT courses does not infer much knowledge about how they work. 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 study the guidebook. In short - please no timewasters.

-The Platform is here to help you create your Thinking Method course, rather than something you join to help out LT. The Platform is not a place where LT asks for help but rather offers help to those seriously interested in course writing. The distinction is paramount as it clearly denotes where the onus lies - on the new course writer!

Apologies for those blunt words, but they will hopefully save time and energies all round! 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.

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 could lead to some very 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, and also to apply the feedback they get after each feedback session. Once the prospective Platform member has done that, they’ll enjoy my full focus and attention for the next step, but I’m only one person, and I need to use my Language Transfer time very wisely with folk who respect it. 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!