October 23, 2014　=========
☆ coach 　指導する
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When I first arrived in Japan, I was teaching English. After a few years, I decided to work for myself, and rather than “teach” English, my focus was (and still is) on coaching my clients. What’s the difference? Well, it might not seem like a big difference but “let me assure you” that it is. 🙂
As a teacher, I would give my students grammar to learn. Vocabulary to learn. And then we would practice it. Then my students would go home and come back the next week and seem to have forgotten what we learned! Oh no!
So, I started coaching instead of teaching. Coaching is more about bringing out the knowledge that they already have and building on that.
Can you see the difference? Basically, teaching is a one-way process. Someone with knowledge on a topic teaches someone the knowledge that they have. The focus is on the teacher. Coaching someone is more of a two-way process. Of course, when you are coaching you are sometimes teaching too, but there is also interaction, observation, and feedback. When you are coaching someone, ultimately the focus is on the student.
After switching to coaching my clients, rather than teaching them, I have found that we are getting great results, too, which is a good reason to continue coaching don’t you think?
Bye,
Chris