Can ONDEN Bring Joy to Coaches Too?
The Meaning Created by Eight Minutes of Listening

In ONDEN, a learner reads English aloud and a Coach listens. At first, it may seem that only the learner receives support. Yet witnessing someone read a little more smoothly than yesterday can also give the Coach a direct sense that their time has contributed to another person’s growth.

ONDEN is not intended to be a one-way service. It is a relationship in which the reader and listener notice small changes together during eight minutes. That relationship may create not only learning for the student, but also joy, growth, and meaningful work for the Coach.

Work That Makes “I Helped” Visible

Even in work that benefits others, it can be difficult to feel its value when the people affected remain invisible. Direct contact with the person receiving the support can make the social impact of the work easier to see.

In a study by Grant and colleagues, university fundraising callers briefly met a student who had received a scholarship funded by their work. Afterwards, the callers increased both their persistence and performance. ONDEN is a different kind of activity, but the study illustrates how seeing who benefits from our work may help sustain our motivation (Grant et al., 2007).

Because an ONDEN Coach listens to the same learner regularly, they may notice changes such as a stronger voice, more natural phrasing, or the courage to finish a difficult passage. They do not need to wait for a major test result to witness growth in progress.

Coaches Grow by Listening

The Coach is not responsible for correcting every pronunciation error. The role is to listen carefully, name one specific strength, and suggest one manageable next step. Through this repeated practice, Coaches may develop:

• the ability to notice small changes
• the ability to listen without increasing anxiety
• the language to describe growth specifically
• the ability to build relationships across linguistic and cultural differences
• the responsibility to welcome someone at an agreed time

A meta-analysis by Ghosh and Reio found that mentoring was associated with outcomes for mentors including job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and career success. These findings combine many kinds of workplace mentoring and do not prove that ONDEN Coaches will experience the same benefits (Ghosh & Reio, 2013).

A learner’s “I could read it” can also become
a Coach’s “I am glad I was here.”

Joy Is More Than Being Thanked

It would be risky to make a Coach’s joy depend entirely on gratitude from learners. Learners are not required to sound cheerful or express thanks every day. Some days include hesitation, frustration, or silence.

Even then, there is value in receiving a learner’s voice without rushing them and protecting eight minutes in which they can practise safely. Longitudinal research on meaningful work identifies autonomy, competence, relatedness, and beneficence as important sources of meaning at work (Martela et al., 2021).

At ONDEN, success for a Coach is not only “How much gratitude did I receive?” It is also, “Did I create a good space as a listener today?”

Sustainable Joy Requires Good Job Design

If we assume that helping others should be rewarding enough to justify unpaid or unlimited work, the system begins to depend on goodwill. Meaning matters, but meaning alone should never be expected to sustain a job.

ONDEN aims to keep the Coach’s responsibility clear and manageable:

• Time: keep the basic session to eight minutes and protect its boundaries
• Role: be a Coach who listens and encourages, rather than a teacher responsible for everything
• Feedback: offer one Good Point and one Next Step
• Compensation: pay for the work rather than relying only on goodwill
• Dialogue: give Coaches a way to raise concerns and describe their workload

Valuing the Coach’s joy does not mean asking the Coach to sacrifice more. Sustainable joy depends on working conditions that make it safe and realistic to continue.

Questions ONDEN Hopes to Explore

ONDEN’s current study focuses mainly on learners. In the future, we also hope to investigate the Coach’s experience:

• Does witnessing small changes in a learner contribute to meaningful work for the Coach?
• How do observation and encouragement skills change through regular listening?
• Which moments create joy, and which create strain?
• Are the time, compensation, training, and support appropriate?
• How can we design a relationship that both learner and Coach want to continue?

We cannot create a good system for learners without listening to Coaches. ONDEN aims to respect both the person who learns and the person who supports that learning.