Free Online Seminar on How To Attract Students and Teach Them in Groups

In my previous blog I looked at how effective you can be as a teacher when working in groups. It was part of my introduction to a free online seminar that you can join here on building a successful practice.

Previously I asked: Is group teaching even ethical given the importance of “experience” in our learning model?

This question could be applied today to the idea of giving lessons on Skype. However, group teaching is my focus, so more about that…

Our historical model of teaching intensive one-to-one lessons was as much about copying Alexander’s business model, as it was about being effective! Almost no-one teaches as intensively as FM did today, no-one. And yet his work is still being effectively passed on.

Rather preempting it all with an ethical decision about whether groups are effective enough or not, why not start by letting your students be the judge?

When students don’t get any benefits, they don’t come back!

Therefore, a constructive question for you to explore around group teaching is this one:

How do I structure an effective learning experience in a group setting?

This has been a personal research question of mine since I began teaching in 1979. With Duncan Woodcock and Clare Hughes, we formed YAAO (Yet Another Alexander Organization) and began offering group lessons at ATA’s studio in the evenings on the second floor of the East West Centre in Old Street EC1, starting in 1980.

Our first experiments were hilarious and embarrassing, yet our students told us they learnt a lot. Back then, I still followed the model that the students had to get their “turn” i.e. hands on experience. We structured “mini-lessons” while we tasked the group to do things as we taught our mini-lessons. The structure was a hybrid of one-to-one / groups and not really satisfactory.

I still had a lot to learn.

Zoom forward 35 years and my ideas have transformed radically. Now I see that when you teach in groups, the theme of your group is a critical factor in determining the benefits you can deliver to your group. And happy students come back for more!

What are your students interested in? What is their passion?

In the ATSuccess 12 Step business plan, passion is the first step. Let’s turn the question above around to you:

What are you passionate (to teach) about?

A successful group teaching experience will happen when your passion meshes with the passion of those attending your group. It’s so simple it’s shocking. Match your passions up, and most of your work is done. Your genius is in putting the group together the way you did. That is part of the Art of Group Teaching, and it does require a lot of skill!

Before you throw your hands in the air and think: “But I have no passion, I have no niche!” remember that a niche can be a problem, not just a community of people. A workshop for workers on “How to be Effective at Your Computer” is a ‘niched’ themed workshop.

The other way to approach it is by people: who do you love to teach? Attract them. Who do you dislike teaching? Actively turn them away. Yes, sometime disqualifying people is a powerful way for other people to be attracted to your group!

The point is: first qualify your students before they even enter into your group. Let them understand what you will be teaching, and who will be there. Forget saying you are teaching “The Alexander Technique” !!! - that sounds too much like a University course – and instead focus on the experience and benefits that will come from attending your group…

Tell your students what they want to know…

What will bring them the most benefit?

What do your pupils already tell what is most valuable about their individual lessons?

One of the keys to a successful group teaching experience is how you set it up in the first place. In the marketing world this is about “qualifying” people. It means you offer a benefit that will appeal to a cross-section of people, then advertise that benefit. Alexander Technique as the tool you use can appear as a sub-title - or in the “About the Teacher” section of your marketing – but it is NEVER what your workshop is about!

Your students will arrive happily expecting a promised benefit: you will find them eager, contributive, tolerant, inquisitive and ready to learn. This, more than any other factor, will determine how successful your group becomes.

How can you effectively teach this enthusiastic crowd?

Of course, now you have them in the room – and ATSuccess offers you a lot of strategies to achieve this – how are you going to deliver their benefit?

If you have 20 participants or more, how are you going to get to all of them individually in 90 minutes? Do you work with everyone at once, or do you just work individually while the others watch, or what!? How much “hands on”? How much talking?

Join our free online seminar for answers to these questions and more!

(If you reading this blog in my archives, join the mailing list below to get news on what is happening now)

These are many puzzles teachers ask me around group teaching…

And that will be the topic of my next blog!