In this solo episode, I speak on the topic of never-ending learning, growing and upgrading as language teachers. I share my story as a language teacher that spans from 2008 to today and the different stages of growth, plateauing and pushing the edges of our comfort zone as teachers with every personal and professional upgrade.

Kelly Diels is a feminist educator, writer, and coach. She specializes in feminist marketing for culture-makers. She’s here to raise awareness about how the business-as-usual formulas we learn everywhere actually reproduce oppression. She develops and teaches alternate, feminist marketing tools to help us do it differently (and better). You can find her at www.kellydiels.com and on Instagram @kelly.diels and you’ll find all the links in the show notes on the website mariaortegagarcia.com.

In the conversation we talked about:

Resources mentioned in the podcast

In this episode, I talk to Lia, an interculturalist. We discussed linguistic code-switching for bilinguals or multilinguals, dialectical thinking and how emotions are cultural. We talked about whether or not it is possible to learn a language without understanding the culture and what it means to speak in a non-native language from a native frame of mind and the surprising answer to what countries have the higher “expat failure” rate. We talk about paradox and Eastern and Western thinking. 

Hedvig and I had a varied conversation that spanned more academic areas like neuro language to the experiential realities of self-expression and identity in different languages.

Podcast notes: https://mariaortegagarcia.com/spanish-blog/neuroeducation-and-languages-hedvig-sandbu-words-off-limits/

In the first part of the conversation we talked about mindfulness in general to then, in the second half, focus on how mindfulness applies to the realm of languages and expression in a non-native language.

Podcast notes: https://mariaortegagarcia.com/spanish-blog/mindfulness-and-language-you-have-been-focusing-on-the-wrong-thing-virginia-jenkins-words-off-limits/

Read the podcast notes here.

Ep.1 with Jessica Sarladie, we talk about healing self-expression in a non-native language, the idea of authority as a hindrance for self-expression and art therapy and languages as a healing tool.

Find the podcast notes and video format of the conversation in the website

https://mariaortegagarcia.com/words-off-limits/