March Newsletter

March was the first month of the Roman calendar - because their main God was Mars....

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March

Believe it or not, this comes up in my maths course.

Other news:

• My maths course has been re-titled and its release has been rescheduled
• Some great new testimonials
• I have more online students than ever before - so not many slots left; hint, hint!
• My course has evolved again

My Maths Course:

The new title is

Naked Numbers: The Three Rules that Make Your Life Add Up.

This will be released as a 5 hour DVD ROM with number content ranging from how to multiply any numbers without any working in seconds, to the rules of indices as you've never seen them before. I believe March gets a mention as well. The reason for the renaming is because the publisher decided that was a title that is going to do very well given the right marketing campaign because of its excellent revolutionary content... so why not give it a try?

New Testimonials:

please visit my site at

http://www.michelthomasmaths.co.uk/Testimonials.html

to read the latest comments from parents and students about my tuition style and courses.

On-line tuition success:

At this time of year, with exams looming, private tuition is on many students' and parents' minds. As a result I have been contacted by many new students seeking help! However, I have a few slots I would like to fill on a Saturday. As usual, this leaves me working 7 days a week until June, but after 9 years I'm getting used to it!! It still gives me great satisfaction to help people and relieve their fears about exams and just simply, understand, maths.

I have a discount special offer on at the moment...see here to book a lesson, and get 10 lessons for the price of 8.

http://www.michelthomasmaths.co.uk/BookALesson.html

Course evolution:

I'm always, ALWAYS, trying to find easier and better ways to teach concepts in GCSE and A-Level, and from time to time I make some breakthroughs! Since I recorded the course (above) in July 09, my course has seen 4 improvements which speed up the following:

Calculating percentages - finding any percentage of any number in seconds and check it's correct!

Calculating discounts - one step to your answer, no long working out!

Trigonometry calculation using right-angled triangles, what the hypotenuse is for!

Product rule (A-level)....

Hope to hear from you soon!

www.michelthomasmaths.co.uk

NEW BOOK RELEASED IN SEPTEMBER

NAKED NUMBERS: the Three Rules That Make Your Life Add Up
£17.99 from Amazon, Waterstones, WHSmith, Play.com....

So, yeah, talking about Michel Thomas...

...my maths course is available for pre-order! This is how it works.

It's a 8 hour course, which covers most topics you need for GCSE maths, including, Number, Algebra, Trigonometry and Data handling. The Michel Thomas method is to break down the subject, putting it back together again in logical and structured way which makes it flow from one topic to the next, making it very straightforward to learn. The other element, as far as his CD courses are concerned, are the feature that you become a student in the recording, by listening and pausing whenever a student is asked a question. You answer it yourself, listen to the student's response and listen to the tutor comment on their answer.

With the maths course, you can see all of this written down as it will be on a CD/DVD Rom which has software showing what is being written.

In the last few months I've come up with some improvements to the course which will enable you to multiply numbers like 24 x 72, or 356 x 342 or 234 x 234 or even 3.24 x 1.81 with ease (much easier than school methods) and then use this same method to do this
(x + 4)(x - 3)
meaning you only need to know one thing. And no, it's not grid multiplication!

There's lots more to it and this course gives you the skills you need and in such a short time that you won't believe it.

Here is the link for the pre-order page on Amazon

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Michel-Thomas-Method-Maths-Course/dp/1444101285/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245412718&sr=8-1

So, have a look, see what you think.

RUNNING 8 MILES

Last Sunday I went on an infinite run, as I call it, a run around Hykeham in a figure of 8... I did 8 miles, my furthest yet. Afterwards I felt pretty good. It was a hot day, despite this though I got into a good rhythm and after a few miles I wasn't feeling the need to take on as much water as usual... this Sunday I'm going to run to Waddington, which is about 4 miles there and 4 miles back...the difference? It's uphill for the first 4! And quite a hill too...

Easy to Learn?

Imagine it was really easy to learn a foreign language. By really easy I mean, it would be exciting, fun, no work, no homework, no memorisation, no drill. You wouldn't have to write anything down or even go to a class.

Imagine.

There is a way. Languages seem to be in the 'boring and difficult' spectrum of education, and many 14 year olds vote with their feet when it comes to options time at GCSE. So they're leaving it in droves, with German suffering in particular.

I took French at school and had a torrid time, doing excruciatingly badly at A-level, getting a D. That was despite my having a tutor as well!

While I was studying for it, I watched a documentary on BBC2 (never repeated for some reason) about a mysterious man called Michel Thomas who claimed to be able to teach French, German, Italian or Spanish in a few days, by the end of which you'd be practically fluent. In any case, you would be far ahead of any student who had gone through traditional education after years of study. I was quite intrigued. In the documentary, the producers test him. They take him, not to a leafy Grammar school, like mine, but to an inner city Islington school with students who had previously failed all their GCSEs.

Within one week, they all spoke French, and they were buzzing from their learning experience. Michel talked very briefly about his method in the documentary, but in those two minutes, I understood more French than I had in two years - at which point I realised he had something. In fact, I intuitively realised that he had stumbled on the 'way' to learn. I had a strong desire to learn, but schools don't have a strong capacity to teach. They think they do, but sadly, they're mistaken.

However, Michel's price tag for tuition was $20,000 a DAY. Which was about $19,999 more than I had.

BUT, in 2000, his method was published by Hodder & Stoughton, and despite the hefty price tag of £60 for 8cds (is that it, no book?), I knew it was worth it.

Within a week I spoke French and it was tremendous fun.

Now, a few years later, I speak 5 foreign languages. But if my teacher was asked, 'How would Paul do in the future learning languages?' would he have replied 'No doubt, within a few years, he'll be able to speak Mandarin Chinese to natives and they'll conclude he has a Beijing accent'.?

That happened to me last year.

It took one month to learn. Driving around in the car.

If you'd like to see the documentary, it is at

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njKaALof2vg

Prepare to be blown away.

10k Run

So today I went to Woodhall Spa to run the 10k. The idea was Anna's, one late Saturday night, a few weeks ago...now I found myself at the start line with around 1,000 others, all in their special running kit. I wore my RAF Reserves T-shirt I'd begged for on Wednesday.

We were given a chip, which you tie to your shoe, and gives you your exact time. Don't ask me how it works, but it's a very clever bit of kit. On the start line then, we waited for the 'off'. People ahead started to shuffle forward...this was it! A few things ran through my mind 'Would I make it?', 'If I do, will I get a fast time?', and 'I need a pee'.

I started off slow, to warm up, keeping with Roger and Denise for a few hundred metres. We had already discussed tactics, deciding to run at our own pace. So Anna shot off, not wanting to lose her natural rhythm. I spotted a couple of crazy blokes in full Army greens with bergens...hang on, I thought, I recognise him! He was in my squadron, running for Help for Heroes. 'Good effort' I said, as I ran by.

I decided to shoot off myself, and after 2k, felt absolutely fine, a water station broke up the monotony. I tried to get my mind to drift, to not think about running, but to switch on to autopilot. I seemed to get further like that, without noticing I was expending any effort.

After 4k, with a little light shower and a bit of a wind, I started to feel pretty tired, and wondering where the halfway point was. Not knowing the course, it was difficult to say to myself, 'Just up here...not far to go'. I had no idea. Next time I'll definitely recce beforehand.

If there is a next time.

Kilometres 4-7 were the hardest, not knowing the course, going a little uphill, feeling tired. I had in my mind that I would probably get to the 8km point and try to sprint home from there to get a good time, but my fatigue was saying 'Don't bother with that plan!'. However, from somewhere came the idea to use different muscles to run with, since they had been underused. It's hard to explain but instead of running normally, I adopted an approach of skimming the ground, using my quads to move my legs forward, instead of pushing with my glutes. This gave them a rest and actually I found myself speeding up and overtaking people. I then decided to employ my calves and started leaping, rather than running, so I started covering some decent ground. Before I knew it, up came the 9k sign and I felt fine.

I dropped to my normal speed as those muscles started to burn - I decided to make it to 9.7km and sprint the last....which I did.

I ran to the finish, feeling tired, but feeling also a sense of achievement. I thought I'd meet Anna, but it seems I passed her somewhere...she came in about 2 minutes later. I got my medal, free water and decided to go and cheer on Roger and Denise. Anna and I decided to run up a bit further and run in with them for that extra encouragement.

After a few minutes we saw them turn the last corner....we jogged alongside. At the end we congratulated each other - we'd made it!

I'm not in a major hurry to do another, but, being competitive, I can't help but think I'll increase the distance next time!

ASDA run

So the shortest way to ASDA is to jump in car, go straight there, park immediately outside, and buy what you need (tonight, a b'day card for my brother, 29 on Sunday). Then pay, and do the reverse.

Tonight, I ran AWAY from ASDA, going the longest possible way...covering about 3-4 miles. Then, after buying the card, I ran AWAY from my house, going the long way home, about 1-2 miles. So I reckon about 5 ish miles.

Which is all good as I'm doing the 10k in Woodhall Spa on Sunday 7th June! And since I've not run 10k yet, (in my life), I thought it might be an idea to see how far I could get. And it wasn't too bad!

I can still breathe and walk.

Didn't take overly long either!

I think a big help was the bayonet training on Sunday at RAuxAF Regiment. That was a bar steward. My lungs wanted to burst most of the time. Couldn't have been better and I think it did me a lot of good. I now have a tap of controlled agression which I can turn on and off. Quite handy for screaming at year 9s.