The first interview: Becoming your own teacher

In fact, I’d like to come back to what makes my situation so special, in that I’m dealing with pupils or young students who are going to be teachers, and so they’re generally a long way from this self-directed learner posture. So all the work in the first few sessions is going to be to help them get into this teaching posture for themselves in a way, and that’s not easy. You can’t rely on words to get you there, and that’s what we’re going to do in the first sessions, what we’re going to do together, so that we really have the opportunity to build that posture, to put them in that posture. It’s a slightly complicated business, but an exciting one. In other words, when you set objectives with them, when you try to work out the resources they need, when you try to work out with them how much time they want to spend on their learning, at what time of day, etc., all these questions, which are precise questions that are in a way an essential protocol for the first sessions, provide opportunities to build this attitude.