The master lens
Three Questions Behind Every Choice
Every teaching decision — and every method that ever existed — answers three questions. Learn to ask them and you can read any classroom, judge any technique, and design your own.
Purpose
Why & Who
the reason, the learner
Why is this language learned, and by whom? A soldier, a child, a traveller, a scholar — each needs a different classroom.
Content
What
the materials
What do you bring to the room? Books, flashcards, real objects, songs, a restaurant menu, your own stories.
Technique
How
the practice
How do learners learn — and how do you help them remember? The strategies, activities and moves you choose.
Purpose shapes content and technique. Change why you teach and everything downstream must change with it. When a lesson feels wrong, you have usually forgotten its purpose.
Purpose is the sun. Content and technique are its shadows.