Before diving into today’s blog post, I’d like to share a life update.
Recently I wrote about wanting to find a personal trainer. I’m pleased to say that I’ve found one. I will see him twice a week and follow a home workout plan between our sessions. I have thought about hiring a trainer for over a year. I’m proud of myself for finally hiring one. He will also be advising me on my diet.
With that aside, let’s talk about today’s topic: How to teach people how to teach (read that twice if it didn’t make sense.)
Did you know that…
I don’t require instructors who apply to work at the Calgary Language Nerds to have previous teaching experience. For example, I recently hired a new Spanish instructor who has never taught before. So far, his training process has looked like this:
He has been an assistant in a class that I teach so he can observe me
He will be teaching his own class starting later this month. I will be present in each class and will provide feedback on his teaching
I’ll also assist in the class when needed
I’m predicting that I will need to have better training processes moving forward.
My training methods have been too haphazard. Every single instructor I’ve hired has undergone a different training process. Since I’m now spending more time on marketing, my business will, in theory, grow faster than it ever has before. I will therefore need to hire more instructors to match the demand.
Without a greater emphasis on better training processes, I fear that student satisfaction will decline as the rate of growth increases.
I am planning to model my training processes after my experiences working at a residential window cleaning company.
You may already know that I ran a window cleaning franchise for 5.5 years. The vast majority of franchisees were profitable, even in their first year of business. This is remarkable, especially when you take into account that no prior experience was required to own a franchise.
For example, I ran a franchise that did about $30,000 in revenue and about $8,000 in profit as an 18-year-old university student. My only work experience prior to being a franchisee was being a soccer coach and a soccer referee. I knew nothing about business whatsoever before going in.
My success was in large part thanks to the ongoing training and coaching I received.
Here’s a summary of how we were trained as franchisees.
Step 1: Learn a skill in a classroom environment
Step 2: Practice the skill in-class using methods such as roleplays
Step 3: Observe an expert demonstrate the skill in the real world (i.e., not in a classroom environment)
Step 4: Perform the skill with the expert beside you, in the real world
Step 5: Receive feedback on how you performed
Step 6: Perform the skill numerous times by yourself over the next 2-6 weeks
Step 7: Have an expert observe you perform the skill again
Step 8: Receive feedback on how you performed the skill from the expert. The expert may also demonstrate the correct way to perform the skill again, if need be
Step 9: Attend a follow up, in-class training session about 3 months after the skill was initially taught
Step 10: Repeat steps 6-10 as needed until you are an expert (or at least proficient) in the skill
Step 11: Repeat all 10 steps for each skill required to run a franchise
My current plan is to implement a similar training process at the CLN moving forward. Let’s see how it plays out.
Wish me luck!
Azren the Language Nerd
Calgary Language Nerds Owner
https://azrenthelanguagenerd.com
Thank you for reading this. Here are some topics I plan to cover in future posts.
Continued updates on my business
Same goes for how I’m helping Gujarati learners
What hobbies will I pursue in my free time? Probably becoming fit will be the first one, but we’ll see
Dating - am I going on 1 date a week? Is that the plan here?
I spend hours listening to music and watching videos (usually on YouTube.) Why is this bothering me?
I’m a deliberate person. Should I be more impulsive?
Just how weird am I? If I truly am a pretty unusual person, can I use this to my advantage?