Purpose

Most teachers know this term rather well: purpose. When it comes to classroom practice, think everyone who has been observed by a peer, coordinator or teacher trainer has heard something like this: “tell me more about that activity you did. What was the purpose behind it?”

We learn quickly that “to have some fun”, “to enjoy ourselves a little” or “to practice” are not usually enough. There is a deeper connotation to it. You are led to ask yourself why your students should perform the activities you ask them to. In the beginning of our careers, we wish to know a lot of ‘whats’ and ‘hows’, but at same stage, the question that matters the most is ‘why’.

Thinking C.E.O. as a huge lesson plan, we started asking ourselves why we exist. What is our purpose? To teach English in business contexts? To provide a solution for adults who want to share a classroom with people who share similar interests? To offer convenience and value for money? If you analyse these questions closely, you will notice they are all related to what we do, and not why.

Therefore, we dug deeper, and it did not take too long to realize why we exist. We want our students to succeed, simple. We thrive through our students accomplishments. It’s not a great lesson that matters. It is when we realize that our students use what they learned in their real lives for their own benefit. Suddenly, we saw that all our ‘whys’ are linked to our ‘whats’.

We succeed when our students are able to hold a telephone conversation in English with their bosses. To help, our students have their teacher’s and my cell phones to call us up any time for a quick chat in English.

We win when our students succeed in presenting something in English at their jobs. To be there for them, we provide special lessons for this kind of circumstance.

We succeed when our students do well in interviews, and of course we schedule some rehearsal Skype interviews with them beforehand.

We hate when students miss classes that they have already paid for, and so we offer them make-up ones, or have them on Skype for the lesson when they are travelling, for example.

We are happy when students are able to socialize with someone with work colleagues from other countries, and that is why we have happy hours in local bars and here at the office.

I could continue, but there is no purpose (got the catch?). We do everything we do because we want our students to get there, wherever ‘there’ is for them. There is no successful lesson if students do not succeed outside the classroom.

Having come to this realization, we have decided to do more, much more. I think our students could already notice some changes. And there is much more to come.

In addition, we have decided to change the way in which we communicate with students and the market. That is why today we are releasing our new campaign “you do good, we feel good”. We want to show why we are here, we want people to know that our success comes through theirs. Based on what our students have accomplished up until now, we feel GREAT.