Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better.

I never read Samuel Beckett, but I should. A friend of mine copied this quote as a message for my birthday present, a couple of years ago.

And this is exactly what I do.

I try. I make mistakes. I try to correct them.
I will try something different. I will make different mistakes. I will solve them somehow.

This is my philosophy!

I held a Japanese class, even if I am not a pro teacher who masters the topic with a concept in mind. A nice concept. The nicest concept I was able to think. To make things together.
What a nice concept, what a nice idea, what for an ideal!

But we don't live in the world of dreams, and nice concepts need time to be spread. So far in my class I have met friendly people, someone willing to help me when I don't know something or I don't see mistakes, someone willing to learn, but the truth is one.

I want to make things together in my own way, because I cannot make things as other people do. I want to make a grammar class, I won't make a vocabulary class for free until you torture me!

Nonetheless, even if I have expanded my concept, I still need a lot of feedback from my students, as I am learning a way to teach. I was always the one to help mates while studying, but here the thing is a bit different. It's teaching a class. It's teaching a class online. Therefore, we can redefine a bit the target: to make things together in my own way asking for suggestions. As I am offering a service, even if it's for free, what I offer should encounter the demand. I am cheap and not experienced, but committed and always available.

When I learned most? I learned most in what I would refer as my most unsuccessful class ever.
I didn't receive the expected feedback even if I almost prayed attendants, and didn't find a good topic to discuss about. Result? I found a topic 5 minutes before entering the class, I prepared no material and didn't study the fondamental vocabulary to teach it, and the topic was worth a speech of 20 minutes, but not 40 minutes or more of exercises.
We ended practicing to draw kanjis while I was writing the on and the kun reading (the two ways to read kanjis) when I knew them, possibly inside a word.
What I call a waste of time. The student practicing kanji could have practiced kanji on his own far way better in a book (paper still exists, even if we are online 24/7, more or less). The other (few) students attending were too experienced to enjoy or too beginner to understand something.

So, following even the main things that I got reading in a very fast way (I don't like to read long texts if they are not formatted in an appealing way, and I often skip entire paragraphs if I think that they are too difficult to apply at the moment) some articles about learning how to teach I decided to act in another way.

Ask for feedback and for suggestions before the class. And then decide together a syllabus, a schedule to follow. So I will be always able to prepare some material in time because I will know since the beginning what I will have to speak about.
It can mean that I could open a class following the needs of one and one only student. But a student who gaves me feedback and is interested in learning in an active way.

And right now people who will attend my classes, if there will be any, with all the limits that I am giving, will have to make homeworks, to study after the class like me, that I am studying to teach them new stuff, and to make pertinent questions to the material taught at the moment and during the previous classes.
If some guests want to attend, and don't disturb, no problem. But if they want to participate, this is the format. Less chit chatting, we can chit chat after the lesson, or before the lesson, or during the rest of the week. Every chat topic related is ok, but not discussions totally not related while the tutor is attempting to teach. Actually, people should learn to chat less during class in all free classes. In paid classes they chat less and less.

At the end, I am quite satisfied with the lesson I did yesterday. It was a kind of workshop on how to build sentences. We added and put away parts to some sentences, to understand the position of the elements.

So, to resume my idea... it is to make things together in my own way asking for suggestions in the most effective way.
I am repeating the same game I did yesterday, adding parts to the sentence, but now it's time to subtract something, as I used twice the word way, and this doesn't sound that good.

Make things together in an effective way that I like.
I cannot be effective if I do things that I don't like.
And other people cannot learn effectively if they don't like my way to teach.
Now, I would replace one word, to be a bit more precise.
Make things together in a structured and effective way that I like.
It means satisfaction for me and for the people who wants to attend.
I know, big ideals for a non pro teacher. Let's see what I will learn from it.

Wish me good luck. As always, any help, from students of higher and lower level than mine, and from teachers, is indeed welcome.