The latest in a very occasional series of ideas to reform the world of TEFL and/ or make some cash that I lack the dynamism and entrepreneurial spirit to do myself and therefore offer for free to the first person who fancies trying it.
The Experimental Language School not only encourages continual experimentation in what its students do in the classroom, but also advertises itself as such, for example by using that actual name for the school.
Although the number of people locally who will be interested in such as school is obviously fairly limited, I’m sure there are other people who would happily travel an hour or two to go to a school which is constantly challenging its teachers and students. One large group of such students would probably be language teachers, as they could learn a language and something new about language teaching at the same time. To expand that market to all English teachers, the school would also probably want to offer classes in other languages (such as Japanese and Chinese here in Japan).
Other things which could make the school viable include:
– Teachers being willing to teach for lower rates or even free in order to have a chance to experiment
– People elsewhere paying the school to experiment for them, e.g. trying out new materials for a chain of school or publishers, or trialling something for someone’s research paper (perhaps someone working in a very non-experimental school)
– Free materials from people who want them to be tried out
The idea is all yours if you want it, and I’d happily teach a couple of hours for free if you set it up in Japan. Anyone think it could work?
Other random TEFL ideas
The Association of CELTA qualified teachers
The Advanced Teaching Certificate
How the future of textbooks has to be
TEFLtastic 