Language Fuel Podcast

We all want to make progress in life. Recently, I learned a great nugget of truth from one of my mentors, which summarises the key to making progress in any area. In this episode, I share that nugget of truth with you, and apply it to language learning. Leslie Foster has also just published two  courses on setting SMART goals for language learning, and for language teaching. The nugget of truth is embedded as a principle in both of these courses, and I outline for you how those courses are structured, and how they help you make progress in language learning, or assist your learners to make progress in their language learning.

The recent events in Christchurch are devastating, to say the least.  But let's remember that as language learners and teachers, we are helping to build bridges between cultures and between different people.  Let this event remind us of that. Let this be our "Why".

In this episode, we share with you the latest course we have just published! It's a course on understanding different types of sentence structure. That might sound boring, but listen in to see how we make this stuff interesting!

In this episode, we're finishing off our interview with Jill Hadfield, an enormously successful English Language Teacher and materials writer, who has been working in the field all over the world for many years. This final part of the interview touches on her charity work that she started in Madagascar, and then walks us through some of the books she's written. We also hear about some of the research she has worked on in the last decade of her career. (Catch up on parts one and two of the interview in the previous two episodes.)

#CelebrateJill We're super delighted to have Jill in our Language Fuel team, contributing as the ELT Content Editor in our online ELT Training Library. As part of our celebration, we're giving away a free annual Premium Membership. Enter the draw before the end of February 2019 at www.languagefuel.com/celebratejill

In this episode, we continue our interview with Jill Hadfield, the new ELT Content Editor at Language Fuel. Jill tells us all about the time she and her husband Charlie spent in Madagascar, where they encouraged and trained teachers who had very little resources. It's hard for Western teachers today to even imagine that.

Don't forget to enter the draw at www.languagefuel.com/celebratejill We're so excited to welcome Jill to the team, that we're giving away one year-long membership to our ELT Training library.

We're kicking off this season with a mini-series of interviews with our brand new ELT Content Editor, Jill Hadfield. Jill has been working in the English Language Teaching industry for many years, and brings with her a wealth of experience. In this mini-series, we get to know Jill a little better. In this episode, part one, we learn about how many books she's written, what her recent research topics have been, and we start to learn about her time spent in different countries. We pause this episode just after Jill finishes talking about her time in Tibet… Tune in to the next episode to hear about their time in Madagascar and more!

Don't forget – during the month of February, we're running a #CelebrateJill campaign. To enter the draw to win a year-long Premium Membership to the Language Fuel Training Library, go to www.languagefuel.com/celebratejill

It's the end of the year, and we're taking the time out to look back at 2018 and look forward to 2019.

Joanna takes us through what has happened at Language Fuel in the last 12 months. We've re-designed our online training courses, and re-named them. We no longer have the Language Fuel Academy. Instead, we now have our two Language Fuel Training Libraries. We've also continued to serve the New Zealand community with language teaching and learning resources. And we've been doing a lot of materials development for language schools.

Next year, we're excited to welcome a new, very experienced team member to help take our ELT Training Library to the next level! She'll also help out with the podcast going forward. So stay tuned for Season Three, which will be re-focused to become more about English Language Teaching, and will be co-hosted with our newest member of the team.

Seasons Greetings to all our Podcast Listeners from the Language Fuel Team.

Have you ever thought of teaching a community language class? The good news is, you don't have to be perfect to make an impact.

In this episode, I reflect on my latest steps in learning Te Reo. I have started attending a local community class for beginners, and it was inspiring to be a part of the class. Tune in to hear what the teacher did right, and be encouraged in your own learning or teaching journey.

I've recently come back from the CLESOL 2018 conference, and absolutely loved it. In this episode, I summarise some of the interesting talks I attended, and what general threads came out of the conference.

If you're interested in following up about the speakers I mention, here are some links:

Dr. Martin Andrew: https://www.drmartinandrew.com/

Dr. Tan Bee Tin: http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/people/ttin009

Dr. Angel Lin: https://www.sfu.ca/education/faculty-profiles/alin.html

Paulette Tamati-Elliffe http://www.kmk.maori.nz/our-people/

Dr. Jeanette King https://www.canterbury.ac.nz/arts/schools-and-departments/aotahi-school-of-maori-and-indigenous-studies/contact-us/key-contacts/jeanette-king.html

Dr. Rae Si'ilata https://unidirectory.auckland.ac.nz/profile/r-siilata

Do you have students with varying abilities in your class? Tune in to this episode, where Joanna summaries best practice around managing multi-level classes. Learn about becoming more learner centric, working with groups, having a range of self-directed activities, what it means to 'flip the classroom' and more. This episode is a brief overview. More in-depth and information about this topic will soon be available as part of our online training library.