UK South Hybrid Course Report for people who stutter – April 2021
The McGuire Programme
Regional Director of The McGuire Programme
- Course Date: April 19, 2021
- Course Location: Online via zoom
- Course Instructor: Mustapha Cham and Michael Joyes
- Number of New Students: 12
What an amazing Hybrid course we ran over zoom between 7-10 April. All 12 new students needed to have many meetings with coaches and instructors of the programme before the course kicked off. This was to make sure they know all about the course and so we can get to know them and make sure they are 100% determined to give this their best chance of success. The courses are hard work and long hours so commitment and self-discipline are really important.
We had a really strong group of coaches on this course with lots of one to one coaches throughout. The fantastic and natural instructors Mustapha Cham and Michael Joyes were well supported by the superb Lisa Nealan in making sure the course ran smoothly.
During this course, the new students were shown how to work on their speech under pressure by having coaches showing them online how to speak to people on the streets using the technique. We also managed to arrange for all the new students to meet a coach on Saturday so they could practice their speech while following Covid19 guidelines. The coaches are the backbone of the programme and they put in so much time going out of their way to meet and coach the new students.
It was great to have the family and friends involved with separate daily sessions to update them on the progress of their loved ones. They were also invited to watch the daily new student speaking challenge to help them understand more about the programme.
We also had 3 new graduates from the first-ever online course in December attend with Hadeel Mousa showing her first-day video and the amazing changes she has made since. Samia Ayayi and Soha Kotb also showed their video, gave eloquent speeches and also got involved in coaching and inspiring the new students during the course.
We also ran separate graduate sessions during the course which were arranged by the brilliant Amy Riddett and Lokesh Mahajan with the graduate attendees invited to watch the new students end of day speeches.
The final speeches were amazing with 100 people on zoom logging in to watch the last session of the course.
What a great atmosphere online. This was created by the brilliant team of instructors and the dedicated coaches who turned up in force to support the new ones.
Now the long term support kicks in with all students having an army of coaching support as they learn to use the techniques under pressure in the real world.
All new students are sounding so strong and are a credit to themselves. Commitment is key and they really want to take control of their stutters – long term!
Who would have ever thought we could run McGuire courses so successfully online.