Guidelines for Teaching for the TLA Network

The TLA Network seeks experienced transformative language artists to teach online classes for us. We currently offer 12+ classes each year, and will be expanding offerings over the future. We envision our online classes as one way we can support TLAers making a living and cultivating Right Livelihood – creating work of meaning that serves the community. At the same time, the classes greatly serve the TLA community, which is rather dispersed, by allowing people to make community while learning about TLA. The TLA Network is an Equal Opportunity Employer and welcomes proposals and applications from individuals of color, PGBTQ people, people living with serious illness or disability, and others marginalized at times in our culture.

We are currently soliciting classes for Winter 2022 and Spring 2023.

Qualifications

Teachers need to be seasoned TLAers, which means they would have some or all of these qualifications:

• Experience facilitating TLA workshops and classes in the community, at colleges or other venues, at conferences, etc.
• Education (in academia or in the school of hard knocks) specifically related to TLA, such as advanced degrees in TLA, Expressive Arts, Arts-Based Activism, certifications in TLA-related areas (drama therapy, therapeutic writing, poetry therapy, etc.) or related areas.
• Marketing and outreach experience and presence. Preference given to people with active social media and web presence, including website, blog, and presence on any/all of the following and other social media: Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
• Connection to communities, groups, previous students, and others who would be potentially interested in taking a class from you (we find that approximately half of all class participants come through our teachers' networks, and half come from TLAN networks).

We seek to bring into the fold teachers with a social change focus, internationally-experienced teachers, and others to complement our current course offerings and help us grow TLA for many populations and communities around the world. At the same time, we give preference to people who have studied and practiced TLA.

Class Format

Timeframe: Classes are usually 6-week sessions but may in some circumstances be shorter or longer.

Online Platform: We use Wet Ink as our main platform, which allows students to work on the class at any time, day or night, and which allows you a lot of flexibility as to what you post. Wet Ink is very flexible and user-friendly.

Zoom: Most of our classes offer at least one online video Zoom call at the start and at the end of a series, and many of our classes include weekly Zoom calls. We strongly encourage teachers to build Zoom meetings into their Wet Ink classes, as the chance to connect with classmates makes the learning experience so much more powerful for participants and teachers alike.

Setup: Our managing director will orient you and provide technical support for you and the students — you’ll be oriented to Wet Ink through a series of videos, and you can set up a call with our staff as well. Students will be oriented to Wet Ink and will have access to Wet Ink's excellent technical support team if they run into issues. Once your class has been approved by our Education Committee we can set you up with a Wet Ink page so you can begin designing your class.

Grading: We don’t require grades to be assigned, however there are some requirements for people doing the TLAN certification.

Class Focuses & Certificate

We actively seek classes on a variety of TLA genres – writing, storytelling, theatre-making, expressive arts, etc., as well as mixed-mediums (such as storytelling and writing) – and on a variety of topics, such as health and healing, social transformation, right livelihood, engaged spirituality, and ecological literacy.

Take a look at past classes here.

Our introductory certificate, TLA Foundations, requires people to take 2-4 classes (depending on whether they attend the annual conference). For people counting a class as part of fulfilling their certificate requirements, teachers must assess whether students have completed at least 80% of the assignments (we have an easy way to do this that requires minimal work).

Marketing

If you want to teach for us, you need to participate strongly in helping market your class. We meet you half-way: we will promote your class through emailings, our newsletter, our website and social media, and we’ll even meet with you to brainstorm ways you can reach your audience. We’ve found is that successful classes always have one major thing in common: the teacher is cultivating a solid following through regular outreach (via social media, newsletters, in-person presentations, word-of-mouth, etc.). As part of the application process, we require a preliminary marketing plan where you can list your outreach ideas. We find that teachers who teach successful classes often acquire a TLA Network following for future classes.

Compensation

We split all net proceeds for each class with the teacher. This comes out to close to the same or more than many organizations offering on-line classes with more complex formulas.

Apply to Teach a Class

Please submit this form, Teach for the TLA Network. Make sure you let us know you have applied, and email your resume or CV (no more than 4 pages) to tlan.coordinator@gmail.com. The online form will include areas for:

• Proposed title of class
• Class description (limited to 250 words)
• Primary audience, such as who would benefit from this class? (limited to 250 words)
• Length of class (we prefer 6-week sessions, but we are open to shorter ones).
• Top three starting dates.
• Format, which would include Wet Ink, and if you’re also considering some phone and/or video conference meetings.
• Marketing plan, including how you’ll reach prospective students via social media (facebook, twitter, linkedin, etc.), web presence (such as blogs and/or websites), media (newspapers, magazines, radio, etc. if appropriate), other classes or workshops or events you do that would work well to share news of the class, and/or word-of-mouth ideas (how to get out the word among people in your community).
• Experience and education in TLA, and your CV or resume (please limit to 4 pages).
• URLs to your website(s) and blog(s) and current social media pages.
  
• Teacher bio

Submit your class proposal today!

Please do not hesitate to contact us with questions at tlan.coordinator@gmail.com. We look forward to hearing from you!