About Us
A journey in creative education
Date with Inspiration!
What could be more delightful than meticulously crafting your own educational material, painting it with passion, and supporting it not only with the knowledge imparted to you but also with the knowledge you acquired on your own, within the invaluable confines of your workshop (which I affectionately refer to as my school)? This workshop is filled with brilliant minds, my own students, who have grown, matured, and even become parents themselves, proudly bringing their children back to this very workshop-school. Now, we eagerly await the birth of the first “grandchildren.” Three generations of students signify an immense wealth of experience. Experience is the conduit through which information becomes knowledge. I tremble with excitement at the thought of adding more students to this lineage, for it is simultaneously my strength and my pride!
I have been consciously creating this educational material since 1989 when I first opened my school. Piece by piece, letter by letter, image by image. It has been tested countless times in both individual and group lessons. I have witnessed its implementation with the same enthusiasm by kindergarten students and bank employees alike. It has been utilized in one-on-one sessions with students on the autism spectrum as well as in large public school classrooms. What have I observed over the past 34 years?
There is no poor performance, no difficulty in comprehension, and no sign of boredom in the atmosphere. It is not merely natural and accessible; it is a collection of remarkable recipes seeking cooks—not necessarily the best, but certainly those driven by passion. Then comes the seasoning, the personal style, the authenticity that each individual brings, leaving their unique fingerprint—the signature—on the marvelous work of every teacher.
The English Tricks 4U Method
The godfather of this educational material, which has evolved over the years into the English Tricks 4U method, was one of my students in 2000. He had a strong memory but struggled with reading and writing. He would often correct me when I did not reproduce one of my illustrations exactly as before. It took me a while to understand the importance of detail. However, from the very beginning, I recognized the value of aesthetics. When I married aesthetics with attention to detail, magic was born in my lessons. Without it, lessons fail to touch the hearts of students and lose their intended destination.
English Tricks 4U is not just a method; it is a process, a movement. It creates an environment that allows teachers to teach at a much deeper level. And I felt the need to share it. For many years, I made almost daily posts on Facebook, Instagram, and my blog, sharing small pieces of the method. Later, I added weekly live sessions, until in 2015, I made a bold decision: to share educational material covering an entire school year. I believed that being an educator meant not only teaching within the confines of the classroom walls. It was time to open at least the windows and let others take a peek inside. This would be done through workshops, in the form of festive gatherings, after so many years of experience!
Initially, I booked a small room in a hotel with a capacity of 50 people. Little did I imagine that I would have such overwhelming participation that I would end up booking a hall at the Megaron Concert Hall? Just as I knew how to marry detail with aesthetics for my students, I did the same for the teachers. I became a director once again, with teaching costumes, an orchestra, a script, and stage settings. I managed to silence my natural shyness so much so that, although it had been my constant companion since childhood, it became almost invisible and silent, at least to others.
The seminars became a source of energy and helped me become better! The level soared as I had to take photographs and record videos of lessons in the classroom to further enhance my perspective. And there, detail fell in love with aesthetics with overwhelming passion, even though I had already married them years ago.
The next milestone of the English Tricks 4U method was hospitals, with the pinnacle being the Pediatric Oncology Hospital. Over 2,000 educators requested to participate in the seminar titled “Life Lessons.” It was hosted at my beloved Acropolis Museum, and all participants wore a red maxi coat, symbolizing the teacher’s love for the child. Since then, we have been building a group of super-teachers who have the honor of teaching the biggest hearts in the world, the children who are battling cancer.
The groups I created on Facebook hosted various parts of the English Tricks 4U. They include seminar recordings, photos from the classroom, techniques that focus on transforming the lesson to make everyone speak and listen to each other simultaneously, materials that I connect and provide to each student individually, thousands of interactive printable pages, and, of course, many of my illustrations, which are nothing more than mnemonic techniques. In these groups, I have met hundreds of bright educators who share the same thirst for learning. We have become one big family, bound by the next day of teaching, the appointment with inspiration, and the anticipation of a new idea.
Our dreams made a temporary stop due to the pandemic. However, we continued to wear suits and direct the now-online lessons. We learned so much that we eventually realized that difficult times gain great value when we learn from them. Difficult times turn us into students, and everything around us is influenced for the better. And thus, our dreams soared once again because good teachers know that our students need to learn from us how we understand what they are going through. Because we all know that question lingering in their minds: “Do you care about me?” We have an obligation to feel what they feel. After all, emotions are transmitted through emotions. We should listen (not always with our ears), learn, and then guide.
