Where’s the fun in that?

We’ve all heard the phrase “all work and no play?”  In our lessons, we know that students make better progress if they are having fun and enjoying what they are doing.  That’s why fun and progress is one of the fundamental principles that underpins the Good Vibes Approach (along with skills based learning).  In fact, fun and progress are so important in our lessons that we call it our lesson DNA.

Fun and progress creates a spiral effect within learning; the two elements feed each other.  When a student is enjoying what they are learning, they will play more, especially outside of a lesson.  When a student is playing more, their rate of progress increases which leads to a greater sense of achievement and pride, which means they play more, which increases progress, and so the upwards spiral continues.

This spiral is incredibly important because it creates the forward momentum in learning; the desire to explore and improve.  But when the lesson DNA breaks, when the balance between fun and progress is off, we hit the danger zone and students are more likely to stop learning.  Students soon know when they have stopped making progress and are even more acutely aware when things stop being fun.  

As a teacher, it’s a careful balance and it can sometimes be difficult to know when to push and when to take your foot off the gas.  We pick up a lot of environmental clues as to how well we are doing: can we hear the progress from one lesson to the next; what’s a student’s body language saying (difficult in teenagers!); what feedback are we getting from the student?  Although very small, they are all indicators that help our teachers understand where the student is in the fun and progress window and allows us to make micro adjustments and changes to personalise the lesson.

If you’d like to experience our lessons in action, you can book a trial lesson at our specialist teaching studio in Newbury town centre: www.goodvibesmusicacademy.co.uk/studio-lessons

If you’d like to find out more about our teaching, visit our YouTube channel where we are exploring different elements of the Good Vibes Approach: https://www.youtube.com/@wearegvma