What’s My Story?

Happy Friday,

If you ask around a bunch of international schools in Asia, people will often refer to me as ‘The EAL guy’.

‘But you’re an organisational coach, Shane, where did that label come from?’

Well, here’s my story (and it makes more sense than it seems).

Rewind back to my early teaching career, and you will find me teaching EAL, which I loved. Teaching is a social purpose, and what greater purpose than serving a community that needed that bit of extra support?

Over those years of teaching, I managed to get quite good at it. So much so, I was fortunate enough to start getting invited to deliver workshops at international schools across Asia. In these workshops, I delivered my heart out, giving every tool I had to better serve emergent bilingual learners. And I received positive feedback.

But did I make lasting change in the schools I served?

At first, no!

And this bugged the hell out of me. Why, when armed with knowledge, did teachers and leaders not implement these techniques into their practice? I had to find out why.

This brought me to a new stage in my journey. I needed to understand how adults learn, and more importantly, how organisations can ensure that happens.

This was at a point in my career where I was leading professional learning and developing a curriculum for a large school group. So, I took a leap and studied with the Teacher Development Trust, eventually becoming a TDT Associate.

Armed with this new knowledge, I realised that professional learning is much more than delivering workshops. It's about strategically planning mechanisms into our PD that ensure success. And it's about great leadership to see this through.

This is what brought me to where I am today. I believe in the power of great leadership. More than that, I believe in the power of teachers and leaders to make their own decisions – real inside-out thinking. And that is why I find coaching such a powerful tool and why I focus all my energy on leadership development.

That being said, I still often get asked to deliver training. So, guess what?

I’ve created a course. I’ve downloaded all my EAL experience and knowledge into this course over the last 6 months, and I’m pretty happy with it.

Check it out here.

BUT BEFORE YOU DO:

To get the most out of it, here are some mechanisms to make it work most effectively:

1. Take the course with others: we learn better together.

2. Set yourself goals and measure them along the way.

3. Keep a reflective journal when you attempt new strategies.

4. Film yourself teaching the techniques and use that to self-coach.

5. Get buy-in from your school leadership team.

You can find the course at https://www.shaneleaning.com/eal

Have a great weekend!

Shane