The reflective practitioner

A lesson in misaligned expectations

There’s something I keep coming back to lately—an early-career experience that, at the time, felt confusing, frustrating, and honestly a bit unfair. Now I see it differently. Not softer, but clearer.

I once worked with a group of legal professionals—judges, to be precise. It was one of those assignments that felt like both a privilege and a test. Early in my career, you don’t question those things. You just show up, overprepare, and try to prove you belong.

And I did exactly that.

Once I had more autonomy in how I ran the sessions—and the company itself leaned toward legal English—I threw myself into building the content. Vocabulary lists, nuanced distinctions, grammar layered into context. The whole package.

Because if you step into a niche, you speak the language of that niche.

When in Rome, right?

I remember thinking: I cannot afford not to know the difference between “termination,” “rescission,” and “repudiation.” To a non-lawyer in Polish, “odstąpienie od umowy” is just that—one concept (basically). You don’t instinctively unpack the legal consequences behind each variation. But here? That felt like the bare minimum.

So I built the input. Because input creates output. That was my logic.

And for one particular judge, I really went all in. Layered exercises, carefully chosen examples, even grammar woven into legal context. Every lesson felt… successful. Engaged. Productive. There were smiles, “aha” moments, and visible progress.

And then—suddenly—it ended.

No warning. No signal. Just a complaint filed outside the classroom.

The reason?

She didn’t need any of that. She just wanted to be able to chat on vacation.

Let that sink in for a second.

Not once—not once—was that communicated. In fact, every session included some version of the same check-in: “Is this useful?” And every time, the answer was yes.

So what happened?

The face I saw in the classroom wasn’t the real one. The real feedback existed somewhere else—filtered through a system, detached from the actual process we were building together.

And yes—it hurt.

It hurt me deeply as a teacher. For a while, I genuinely hated working with lawyers.

Not because of the law itself, or even the difficulty of the material—but because of that disconnect. That feeling of giving everything, and realizing it was never really received in the way you thought.

And that’s when something clicked for me, maybe for the first time in a truly practical way:

If you work for someone who treats language as a service—but doesn’t actually live it—you will always be one step removed from the truth.

They manage it. You experience it.

And those are not the same thing.

What stayed with me after that wasn’t just the disappointment (though yes, I gave it everything I had). It was the realization that relying solely on “official” needs analysis—especially when filtered through a company—is not enough.

Even if the company says: “We’ve got the brief. Just deliver.”

You still need your own diagnosis. Your own verification. Your own quiet skepticism.

Because otherwise, you risk building something beautiful… for the wrong purpose.

And maybe that’s the real inverse effect here—the unintended outcome of good intentions. The more precise, structured, and “correct” your teaching becomes, the further you might drift from what the person actually wants—if no one ever says it out loud.

Since then, I trust declarations less, and signals more.

And I ask better questions—but also listen differently to the answers.

Not just what’s said.

But how easily it’s said.

Now, nearly 25 years into teaching—and working as a methodologist—I say this to every teacher I mentor:

Build your own system in your head. Do your own analysis. Always.

Treat the client’s or company’s needs analysis as just one layer—not the truth.

Only when you actively compare the two—your diagnosis and theirs—and work toward a shared common ground, can you create something that actually works.

Something that feels satisfying.

For you as a teacher, and for the business learner sitting across from you.

And only then do the results become real. Measurable. Meaningful.