Ever wonder what it might be like to be a new Trainer for LevelUp English? What do our trainers need to do before they go out on the road for us? What do their first experiences with us look like? Today we’ll take a look at a new Trainer Onboarding Day!
Onboarding? Onboarding!
LevelUp is always on the quest for finding talented facilitators to join us in creating extraordinary learning experiences for as many young people as possible. Therefore, we’ve developed our LevelUp English onboarding to introduce our new team members to our innovative and interactive style of teaching - which combines the knowledge from our TEFL certifications and our Bachelor of Arts degrees with our philosophy of gamification, which makes learning not only fun but also easy!
Our new talents
At LevelUp English, we value educational qualifications, humanity, and trainers with a passion for our mission (learning English should be fun and easy!). For this reason, the basic qualification of all trainers is a Bachelor of Arts or an English teaching qualification (e.g. TEFL) as well as the completion of the LevelUp trainer training. Only if we are convinced that the applicant meets the necessary professional requirements and has what it takes to teach English playfully with joy and creativity, we send out an invitation to the Onboarding Day.
Excited to meet you!
Our office team arrives at the co-working space, the CIC at Görlitzer park, nice and early to set up our space for the new trainers. They decorate the tables with yummy baked goods, like croissants and bretzels, and add some fresh fruits (but, of course, some chocolates are there as well!). Up until now, the new trainers have made it through a screening process, and then a few video interviews, but today will be the first day we all meet each other in person. Katelyn, our Academic Director, has written “Welcome to your LevelUp Onboarding!” beautifully on the whiteboard.
Ready and...GO!
At 9:30, our new trainers started to check in with the front desk. When everyone arrives, they are brought up into our decorated space to have a few snacks and some much-needed coffee! And since we don’t know each other well, yet, our favorite way to start the day is of course with a name game! We stand in a circle, and one at a time we say our name while we mime an action that describes a hobby we have - this way we learn names, but also a bit about each other right away! For example, our first trainer says “Kate” as she pretends to play the guitar. Then everyone repeats it back to her, “Kate!” These games are exactly how we like to start our project weeks or language camps with our students - they not only help you learn about each other very quickly but are also great fun and create an exceptional learning experience!
Now it's getting serious!
Once we know all of our names, it’s time for our Head Trainer, Cagn, to break down some essential Classroom Management skills. Just like each of our students, each classroom environment is unique, so something we really try to focus on with our trainers is to be adaptable. We practice teaching students with all levels of English, and with all different types of interests, to make sure all of our trainers are able to read each organic classroom and adapt our projects to fit the needs of each student and to provide an exceptional learning experience. Throughout the morning, our new trainers learn some of our favorite games to use in their classes. Maybe you’ve played some of them yourselves? Games like Buzzy Bees, Flaky Friends, Do You Love Your Neighbor, and Secret Agents, just to name a few. This part of the morning is always full of laughter and energy, because a lot of our games require you to be on your feet, getting the blood flowing!
Hi, Felix!
By mid-day we’ve worked up our hunger, so we’re all excited to eat! We head down to the cozy kitchen of the CIC where the kitchen staff has prepared some delicious food for us. Lunch is an excellent time for us to slow down a bit, and be able to have more 1 to 1 conversations with each other. A lot of our new trainers will be working throughout the season together, so friendships start to form as we share our french fries. After lunch, it’s time to hear from our founder, Felix. He brings the heart and soul, as we learn why he decided to found LevelUp in the first place! Inspired by the class trips he took as a child, he emphasizes how important it is to experience the culture of the language you’re trying to learn, and he reminds our new trainers how influential they will be in the lives of their students. Plus, we get to see some super silly pictures of him as a student (way back when).
The stage is yours!
Then it’s time to turn the tables! This portion of the training asks our new trainers to teach us something new! Each newbie gets to show us a game that they’ve used before, or that they’re inventing on the spot. This is where we find out: Is the new trainer able to create an exceptional learning experience? This is the most collaborative portion of the afternoon, and also another great opportunity to get to see the teaching personalities of our new trainers. Plus, it’s so fun to play a bunch of games back-to-back! Who wouldn’t love that ?!
Time to say goodbye...but not for long!
After that, we made it to the final 30 minutes of our onboarding day! This portion is the ask-us-anything round where the trainers can ask about any topics that were unclear, not covered, or just completely random. The trainers also receive their official handbooks with all of the games, classroom management techniques, and general info about LevelUp that they learned today. When all of the questions have been answered, then that’s a wrap on our onboarding day! But luckily we don’t have to say goodbye, only see you later, since we’ll soon all be on the road together coming to meet you!
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