Breaking the Fourth Wall

Language Transfer: The Documentary

Hello Substack!

I know, it’s been an awfully long time since I wrote anything here, but it’s not because I haven’t been trying! I decided to whack it all in the same document yesterday, the reams of semi-inspired prosaic essays I’ve been spewing out and leaving unfinished for the best part of a year. They had accumulated into dozens of unnamed documents full of repetition, floating all over my desktop. Putting it all together, it’s come to 130 pages in total, over 100,000 words. Entirely unmanageable, and I still can’t be sure I said what I wanted to.

I’ve stopped trying for now, because I’ve understood that all these things I want to share insist on coming together in a way I can’t manage with text, but I do feel I have stumbled upon the correct medium - albeit an unexpected one. Whilst I might drop an article or two along the way, I’ll be using all this text to help source the narration for a feature length documentary!

‘Language Transfer: The Documentary’ will come in two main parts. Part 1 will be about the Thinking Method as a whole - the experience of the learner, the ideas behind the method, the Thinking Method Guidebook and the forthcoming platform for new writers. It will further explore and expose the ideas about language, learning and thought that make this method what it is, boasting the results it does.

This forms part of a wider push I’ve been making during the past years to share the Thinking Method not only to encourage the creation of new courses, but also so that elements of the method might be incorporated into other teaching styles too, albeit informally. Forever more teachers let me know about how their experience of LT is effecting their teaching, and although this is not an impact I can measure, I do want that ball to keep rolling! The forthcoming documentary along with the guidebook, the platform and the recently finished music course which showcases the method for new subjects, together will form an arsenal of resources for the expansion of the Thinking Method!

Part 2 of the documentary will be all about the story of Language Transfer as a project, or in other words, my story of creating this project. The story of Language Transfer was still an unwritten one for me until recently - whilst I was still searching for a team, imagining different versions of that in my mind and doing what I could to manifest them. Then, the LT story was still the future. Now that I have officially given up that search and replaced it with the platform, there’s suddenly a story to tell.

It’ll be an intense workload ahead in order to get this out, but I’ve done crazier things. Of course, I’m not a documentary maker (yet!) so a lot of this is going to be trial and error, but that’s ok - everything about Language Transfer has been trial and error too.

I’ve already began collaborating with some talent for the documentary soundtrack, and will be looking for many more collaborations - not least from learners! As mentioned, Part 1 will focus on the teaching/learning experience, and that includes you! I hear the most astonishing and surprising stories about the role of Language Transfer in people’s lives, and I would love to celebrate them in Part 1 of the documentary. If LT has been formative in your life in some marked way, I'd love to include that story! Here’s some ideas on how to get creating material for the documentary:

-Quick Fix! You can simply talk to your camera in an inspired moment and share your LT experience in this way. You can also ask an interested friend to listen and even interview you! If you aren’t tech-savvy, remember that nearly all young people can do this on their phones better than anyone could 20 years ago! You might also spontaneously record when you find yourself recommending LT, spontaneous footage is often the best!

-A Little Deeper! If your story involves other people - your Greek speaking grandparents, your Kenyan partner, a tutor that suddenly saw you excel once you started Language Transfer, a friend who witnessed your new-found confidence - it would be amazing if you included them in the footage!

If filming feels like too much but you know you have a special story to tell, you can limit your contribution to audio rather than video, or alternatively let me know about the story you want to share and I can see about sourcing a camera-person locally to help film!

I’ll also be looking for all kinds of volunteer collaborations so please reach out if you have applicable skills you’d like to share pro-bono for the documentary. And finally, please join the Patreon campaign (or create a paid subscription on Substack) if you’d like to support Language Transfer & The Thinking Method!