He was different in every respect. He was beautiful and terrible at the same time. He was cruel and kind, unbearable at times, but still ours. We realized our own existence and fought to continue to offer our services to you every day.
"I'm glad it's over! It was a big change, we learned to work differently," says Andrea Rohuna, the current leader of the HARMONY ACADEMY language courses.
"Manageable. It was a year of great changes, which we still cannot fully appreciate or recognize at this moment," adds Jaroslav Chynoradský, managing director of HARMONY ACADEMY.
SUCCESSFUL cooperation with universities
We started January 2020 with the message "a good step forward", when I spoke to you and summarized the results of 2019. In it, we set out the path of development of our HARMONY in cooperation with two universities, and we succeeded! But let's go in order.
NEW for young children
We started the opening activities of the year together with the Edubears team. We trained teachers in Bratislava and Trnava, while becoming the first language school in Slovakia to receive a license to teach English courses to children aged 2 to 7 years Teddie Eddie. Their teaching is based on an absolute novelty on the Slovak market – a professional and proven method that was born in Poland more than 10 years ago. Despite the fact that we were stopped by the COVID-19 crisis and managed to realize only demonstration hours, we believe that in 2021, children from Trnava and the surrounding area will be able to fully enjoy the power of this new concept. The plan to open the first Teddie Eddie courses is still alive, and once the measures are relaxed, enrollment in these courses will begin.
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
I consider a business trip to the French school CNTC just before the outbreak of the corona crisis at the beginning of March to be very crucial in 2020, when, together with Gabriela Lojová, I educated teachers, lecturers, managers and owners of private language schools there in the development concept of Learn & Lead. You can read more about this journey in the article we wrote after the return of The Successful Mission in France. You can read how one of its direct participants, CNTC language school owner Nicky Abadie, perceived the benefits of this initiative in the interview Benefit Learn & Lead through the eyes of Nicky Abadie, prepared by our HAPPY SCHOOL 2020 project coordinator Monika Miklánková.
BOOKS OF OUR LECTURERS
In the preparation of new teachers, we have further deepened our focus on the needs of pupils and we were delighted with a new book from our expert guarantor of teacher programs – Prof. Gabriela Lojová Let's teach a foreign language more effectively: An approach focused on people's needs. In March 2020, my third book, "The 9 Principles of Modern Man , Learn and Lead!" saw the light of day, and you can read the article of this birth in an article whose apt title Learn and develop throughout your life. To stop in development is the beginning of a downfall. At the same time, the content of the book became the essence of a new educational program, which we successfully implemented in 2020 for 21 participants in three tours from 8 countries of the world.
WE ARE BROADCASTING FOR YOU
Those of you who "tuned" us in the months of April, May and June on FB, so you had the opportunity to meet new characters – I, YOU, SHE as well as WE identities. They featured in original stories, with which we tried to bring you closer to the development concept of Learn & Lead. The main character in them is played by a teacher and Trainer YOU and thanks to the story, we move together to 2029, when YOU looks back on its teaching career. You can read more about these stories in our article Do you want to look into the future with us?.
HOW WE ALIGNED
While outwardly we were preparing these stories about YOU for you, internally we came together even more in HARMONY ACADEMY and created a key HARMONY team, in which we worked together day after day, week after week, for answers on how to move forward together using the Learn & Lead concept. Our key corporate clients suspended our classes from March to September, so we had a lot to do to keep you on track of the unexpected situation. It is impossible to express in words thanks to Lucia Chladná, Adi Rohná, Evka Polčičová as well as two members of the HARMONY team from the family – daughter Betka and husband Jaroslav for their great contribution of energy, dedicated work and interest in our joint work in these critical months. At the same time, I would like to thank every other HARMONA lecturer or worker who added their hand to the work and helped us through a period that will forever carry the symptom of "other – COVID".
INNOVATION IS BORN
In 2020, our long-grown and developed Learn & Lead solution shone at full force in 2020, when we succeeded in:
- Enter into a business partnership with the first three language schools that have adopted Learn & Lead based on their transformation. These are, in particular, the PETRASSO schools – an alternative centre for teaching foreign languages from Nitra under the leadership of Sonia Petrášová, the iCAn language school from Bratislava under the leadership of Aljona Kurotová and the LINGUAPAX language school from Croatia under the leadership of Berislav Božanović.
- Acquire both Erasmus+ KA203 international projects, in which our Learn & Lead concept is developed in two key directions under the supervision of top experts. In the pedagogical direction with the Faculty of Education of the Catholic University in Ružomberok and in the economic direction with the Faculty of Economics and Management of the Tomáš Bata University in Zlín. With both universities, we will work almost simultaneously during the period 2020-2022 to develop new educational programmes for current and future teachers in two European countries – Slovakia and Lithuania, we will develop two interactive websites – one for teacher self-assessment in a pupil-centred approach and the other for the purpose of presenting the outputs and tools of the new business model for language schools, we will create referral guidelines for teachers, lecturers and school managers who decide to implement a pupil-centred approach to their entire operation, train teachers and trainers-experts and prepare many other key outputs that will benefit teachers, Trainers as well as managers and owners of different types of schools and educational organisations across the EU.
- Build a new business company Learn & Lead Innovation together with Juraj Málik, Tomáš Kurth, Daniel Sládka and spouses Alona and Milan Kurot.
ONLINE gatherings of friends and fans Learn & Lead
In September, we launched our regular monthly update sessions at ZOOM's "Learn & Lead UPDATE Monthly Meetings" for every participant in our Learn & Lead Education, where they have the chance to engage in authentic discussions, debates, and development initiatives by like-minded people. We have also set up a group of volunteers who work in the "Learn & Lead Committee" and their role is to help us develop a community of people committed to the development of themselves, their teams and organizations using the Learn & Lead concept.
PERFORMANCE IN LESSONS AND TEACHING
- As for the teaching of foreign languages itself, in the school year 2019/20 we taught a total of 5608 hours and recorded a drop to the level of our performance in 2002!
- It was also interesting to find out that since April 2020, more than 95% of individual students have continued with us, while for corporate clients it was just over 5%.
- In the spring, we opened our first international class for children "English online".
- In the summer, we successfully trained another international group of teachers, lecturers and managers from Croatia in the Learn & Lead certification .
- We also managed to realize the first weekend batch of 9 principles of Lead & Lead for families with children, which opened the door to modern managers working both in production companies and in education or finance.
- The crisis forced us to change our premises as well , so we left Halenárská Street and returned to The Main 27/A, in the courtyard near Bata, where we started the original HARMONY School of English!
- Almost overnight, we had to become active users of the new SKYPE, ZOOM, WEBEX or Microsoft Teams platforms.
THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts!
All our Trainers And the whole team was forced to constantly develop and update our "settings" in order to be able to deliver a quality performance "remotely" immediately and as competently as possible. We have found a way forward together, and I am personally pleased with the success of every individual who did not hang it up in 2020, but coped with the pitfalls and developed their natural potential. Thank you from the bottom of my heart to every student and client who has chosen HARMONY ACADEMY as their guide, teacher or supplier of language learning in 2020. We appreciate your kindness and look forward to seeing you again in 2021.
ERASMUS+ ACCREDITATION
In the autumn, we submitted our application for Erasmus+ accreditation, in which we defined the key needs:
1. development of entrepreneurial and strategic thinking in organizations,
2. the development of lifelong learning systems across the organisation;
3. increasing competencies in all positions in organizations,
4. increasing the quality of services and attractiveness of the organization,
5. development of customer relations,
6. networking and international cooperation;
7. raising awareness of people's mental resilience and health in education;
8. The economic sustainability of the school in the labor market.
It led me to reflect and publish my very first blog on the Daily N portal under the title The world is changing with the arrival of the young generation, we are changing with it.
RESOLUTIONS AND ACTIONS OF THE YEAR 2021
And what can we expect from this year 2021? In my opinion, it is important to 'not wait but to act'. To step forward with courage for the kind of future we wish for our loved ones, friends and colleagues in the best possible scenario. We need to respect the current state of being in our society and gradually take small steps to feel good about our lives. For the first time in my life, I publicly wrote 12 modern resolutions for new leaders in 2021. I dedicate them to the memory of my outstanding friend Jim Wright, who left us in November 2019. However, during his lifetime, he was able to tear down a number of people to whom he poured vital energy into their veins and encouraged them not to be afraid to be themselves. I was lucky enough to belong to his circle of close people and let a new Jana grow up alongside him. Jane, who gradually ceased to be afraid and decided to create and grow. Today I know that it is worth fighting for your dreams and aspirations. It is worth being true to your values and beliefs.
NEW LEADERS who will be born in 2021
Perhaps you are the new leaders for whom these resolutions are also written by you who are reading this article right now. After all, each of us can become a leader if he takes his life into his own hands and gradually goes into business for years to fulfill his life mission. With love, courage, patience, perseverance, intuition, empathy and an insatiable desire to achieve peace of mind that slumbers in each of us. If you are wondering what more I offer in these resolutions, you can read in my second blog on DiaryN.
I wish you all good health, happiness, joy and love in 2021. May this year be full of strength, determination, achievements and miracles for you that will lead you to a new path of life.
Yours sincerely,
Jana Chynoradská
