Darcy Quinn
Book
← The Practitioner Programme

Free teaching diagnostic

Is your teaching diagnostic, or reactive?

Fifteen statements about how you teach professionals. Be honest — answer for what you actually do, not what you intend to do. It takes about four minutes.

Diagnose

1. Before I plan, I identify what the student's communication problem actually is, not just what they say they want.
2. I can explain why a student struggles in a specific situation, not only that they do.
3. My first session with a new professional produces a clear, written direction for the following weeks.

Structure

4. Every lesson has a defined objective the student could state at the end.
5. I teach frameworks for organising what students say (answer-first, signposting), not just vocabulary.
6. My lessons follow a recognisable structure rather than following the conversation wherever it goes.

Language upgrades

7. I upgrade language that's correct but sounds less senior than the speaker is.
8. I work on register, tone and hedging, not only accuracy.
9. I teach rescue language: how to recover, reformulate and buy time when English fails mid-sentence.

Realistic practice

10. Practice in my lessons reproduces the pressure of the real situation: interruptions, pushback, time limits.
11. Scenarios are built from the student's real work, sector and stakeholders.
12. Students rehearse high-stakes moments before they happen, not only discuss them afterwards.

Feedback loops

13. My feedback is specific enough that the student knows exactly what to change next time.
14. I track progress against the original diagnosis, not just general impressions.
15. Students leave every lesson with something concrete to apply before the next one.
0 of 15 answered

A quick self-check to get you thinking — not a validated psychometric test.