Game Plan 2024/25!

EDIT! I wrote a Substack post based on this update which maybe makes for smoother reading than the original post!

https://open.substack.com/pub/languagetransfer/p/round-tables?r=ufgt0&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Hello y’all and thank you for all your pledges this, and each, month!

As per my last post, I haven’t been over-updating you, but I am surprised to see how many months have passed since that update… time really does go faster as you get older! Thank you again for allowing me to just focus on the task at hand rather than on "public relations". Finally though, I have something big to share, and a call to action, too. So here I am! :)

As most of you will know, my main focus now has shifted to getting this way of learning more ‘out there’, which means getting the existing courses better known, but much more than that, getting more teachers employing The Thinking Method and writing new courses. After all, the best way to bring Language Transfer & The Thinking Method to the attention of more people, is more material.

What is most time consuming when I myself make a course is the fact that, in most cases, I don’t actually speak the language I’m teaching, and which I’ve only researched for the purpose of the course. Such an absurd and demanding task it is that many refuse to believe it can be any good. But I always agree, it is absurd, and I feel it’s even a reflection of how bad educational practices are, that I -monolingual until adulthood- have felt I had to do this. It has been a superhuman, nerve and neurone frying effort and, as I’ve mentioned often, an entirely unsustainable one. For this reason and many others, I have shifted my focus to teaching The Thinking Method itself. First with the publication of the Thinking Method Guidebook (www.languagetransfer.org/guidebook), then with the music course aimed at showcasing the method in other subject areas (www.languagetransfer.org/music), and then with The Platform for new writers (www.languagetransfer.org/platform) open to both language and non-language writers to build courses with my help. To these efforts we now add Round Tables.

Everything other than the final formalisation of a course in a language I don’t speak - everything but all that painstaking checking and editing whilst depending on volunteers, obsessing about everything I might have not thought about, unable to rely on any ‘speaker’s sense’ of my own - only on reason, everything but that dark and dense world I find quite enjoyable! Even easy as far as challenges go in this life - the whole dissecting and sussing out a new language, hunting for and breaking codes, the forensic and etymological ideas, all of this comes to me quite naturally at this stage of the game - barely a day goes by in which I don’t make some accidental discovery that could be used in a course or ten, as my brain roams and bounces from some word seen on a sign or heard in a revealing context. I have begun to feel a little wasted, in this sense. It was only ever the painstaking finalisation of a product that is meant to teach you as much as I myself know the moment you finish it which was causing me so much tension to the point where I became sure this was not the life I wanted to be living. Focusing on the general conceptual, ideation part of the process, though, is extremely fun, interesting and motivating for me, it’s very stimulating in positive ways. I know I can dissect one language after another without fear of burnout if I limit my role to this part of the process, which is also the best use of my talents. If I can look at a language and find new coherent ways of explaining its behaviour which outperform the ideas that have been used for hundred or sometimes thousands of years, then I really should get doing that with as many languages as I possibly can (whilst also slowly broaching other subjects), and without being slowed by the all-consuming process of formalising an entire course in a language I don't speak. This really is a great use of my time and talents, and much like with the open platform idea replacing that of a fixed LT team, I really wish I had thought of this Round Tables thing sooner!

So what exactly are Round Tables? A Round Table session is where I dive into a new language just as I do when I begin to write a new course, but around a table with native speakers to indulge my every doubt and assist me in understanding how they use their language. My job in the Round Table sessions is to suss out more coherent ways to understand and teach the language, to provide a plethora of ideas for connection and order, springboards for content and directions, to dissect the language as if I were about to write the course myself - and although I’ll want to after such sessions, I won’t. In this way, I maintain my focus on getting more Round Table sessions recorded for forever more languages and subjects. The video of the Round Table session will be made publicly available, so that new native speaker or fluent writers can use it to create material. And of course I'll be there for the "fallout", through The Platform where I provide my feedback and direction which is archived for future use. The sessions are also a masterclass in how to use native speakers to resolve doubts, which -as described in the guidebook- it would be foolhardy to assume is a straightforward task!

When there exists a Round Table session for a language, it means the material uploaded to The Platform for it should, from the outset, resemble much more closely the Thinking Method courses you are used to. Every time I get this done for a new language, it will also become much more likely people start writing courses for said language, and the whole process should become streamlined, too. What I would be working out slowly about any given language through my interaction with a new writer, is mostly all already figured out in a Round Table session for any number of writers to experiment with. This means that if there is a language (or other subject) you want to see tackled with the Thinking Method, the best thing you can do is help organise a Round Table event for it!

And so, here comes the call to action! I need help spreading the word and putting out the feelers. If there is a language or subject you want to see The Thinking Method broach (and even if there isn’t!) please have a think about any organisation or institution that might have a mutual interest in the Round Table session happening, and hit them up with all the enthusiasm for this project that you can muster! It could be anything from a university department or society, to a cultural centre, an embassy, philanthropist, research centre or company where these aims or interests could coincide.... there might be any number of reasons for wanting to take the Thinking Method to any particular language or subject area, so we can get creative! Whether it’s help with cost, hosts or participants, I’ll always favour collaborative events over those I have to organise myself, as I can of course focus much more on the task at hand if I am received rather than also being the guy securing participants, setting the table and finding the roof. And so, I hope the usership can help generate many invites to collaborate for specific Round Table sessions! Meanwhile, I’ll be seeing what I can do with the donations and organising myself, starting local. As I'm currently in the north of Spain, that's looking like Portuguese and Basque! But we'll see what collaborations may arise! Either way, I hope to start in the Autumn!

The more Roundtable sessions that are recorded, the more lively The Platform should become and the sooner the material there should reach the level we have come to love, and -as is my hope and expectation- to surpass it. Funding/helping organise a Round Table event is the perfect way to invest in the language (or subject) of your choice, so please spread the word and let’s see what we can get done!