The English Classroom Story

Encouragement, perseverance and real feedback

Three ingredients that I believe make the difference when you are learning something new are encourgement, perseverance and real feedback.

Why these three particularly? To get started most of us need a bit of cajouling to believe that we are capable of learning something new, then it’s down to us to show a bit of mettle. We have to persevere because if this is a new skill, it’s going to take some effort isn’t it? And finally, we need to know how we are doing. We need to know what ‘s working and what isn’t and how to improve. Real feedback does this.

And these three qualities have been intrinsic to The English Classroom’s story too.

Like most businesses now, The English Classroom started out on a laptop in my kitchen. In my case teaching English over Skype. It grew and I moved into my local co-working area and started to employ freelance teachers to teach group classes. My focus was on preparing advanced language students to take an exam that would help them get into university, secure an international visa and prove their advanced skills to global employers.

These incredibly talented, brave and ambitious people, the potential leaders of our future, were quaking in their boots though when it came to speaking the English language! At this time I’d been dealing with some confidence issues of my own by forcing myself to speak in public. And it was working for me.

“Why not encourage these great students to do the same”, I thought, and set up a speaking club for those brave enough to want to speak in public and get some real feedback that they could use.

Et voilà Confident Speakers was born!

Confident Speakers is for everyone whether you are a native English speaker or are using English as your 2nd or even third language!