2025 at the halfway point: are we on track?
Mindful Monday: July 7, 2025
Welcome to Mindful Monday. Each Monday, Leo and I post this to help you create your own teaching business at the intersection of strong pedagogical practice and entrepreneurial strategy. We hope this helps you on your journey.
🎙️ Teacher Talking Time: The first 6 months
We say this every year, but it’s hard to believe we’re now closer to 2026 than 2024. And as Leo and I take a bit of a summer pause on Teacher Talking Time, here’s what the first half of 2025 has looked like for our show:
1. A Plan is not a Strategy: The 7 Cs of Teacherpreneur Success
Why do some teachers thrive as entrepreneurs while others struggle? We dissect this question. Many teachers want to earn more, teach online, and gain more clients - but struggle to implement a sustainable strategy. We go over seven "Cs" to help.
2. Stop Apologizing for Being Multilingual - Dr. Angelica Galante
Native speaker or non-native speaker? Monolingual or plurilingual? Why do we have a binary bias in modern society?
These are some of the questions we tackled with Dr. Angelica Galante, associate professor at McGill University where she focuses on plurilingualism.
3. Native Teachers can’t Fix Pronunciation - John Levis
Learners can think a native teacher is a vaccine against poor pronunciation. Equally, native teachers can be misinformed in thinking that students should just follow them.
We dive into pronunciation, intelligibility, and teacher effects on learner performance with the great John Levis, professor at the University of Iowa.
4. Native English isn’t Relevant to the Majority of English Users - Jennifer Jenkins
"It's such social injustice to expect people to use English like native English speakers, whichever country they're in."
We dive into this and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) with Jennifer Jenkins, Chair Professor of Global Englishes at the University of Southampton until her retirement in 2019.
5. Learner Autonomy is Driven by the Teacher, not the Learner - David Little
Learner autonomy is something that happens INSIDE the classroom, not out of it. Teachers can't sit back and wait for their students to become autonomous.
This is part of what the esteemed Dr. David Little - Fellow Emeritus at Trinity College Dublin - shared with us in our conversation.
6. Don’t Teach AT the Students, Teach OFF Them - Scott Thornbury
Scott needs no introduction and is our first repeat guest on the show.
He’s a teacher, teacher trainer, and award-winning author in English language education. His latest book is called Scott Thornbury's 66 Essentials of Lesson Design.
Upcoming Episodes:
We’ve already recorded the episodes the rest of this year - it’s a wonderful feeling to be ahead, isn’t it?
We’re so excited to share them with you, the first of which is with Graham Burton on The Big Beasts of English grammar - coming very soon (as soon as I fix one little audio thing 😂).
Teacher Entrepreneur Series:
Starting in September, we’re launching a new mini series with entrepreneurs in education. They’ll be released on the same channel and playlist so watch out for those which we hope will provide you insight on building your business.
Where to get Teacher Talking Time:
YouTube and any Podcast app:
🎯 Want to Learn with Us?
Many of you have asked us if our CPD courses are still available.
Yes!
We just “moved house” and they are all available on Thinkific.
Check them out here:
1. Teaching Listening Made Easy
If students do a listening, does that make it a listening lesson? Textbooks train students to guess, not to understand. This course shows you how to truly TEACH listening using real-world audio, zero fluff, and NO planning.
2. SPA: Speaking Pronunciation
This course will help teachers and learners develop an awareness of how to become an effective communicator, show teachers how they can help learners develop agency in the process of becoming a better speaker, and this is achieved through the use of authentic materials and tasks- so learners can develop their own voice throughout the process
3. G4T: Advanced Grammar for Teachers
This course aims to help teachers approach grammar with ease in their classrooms. With a focus on language awareness, what grammar is - and what it isn’t - and a reflective approach to grammar, this course will help teachers be more confident and comfortable approaching grammar in their classrooms.
All are aimed to help you teach more reactively, authentically, and without a coursebook.
Lifetime access, self-paced, and an investment future you will be very happy about.
📚 Summer Reading
Warm weather seems to bring with it higher motivation to read, at least for us.
Here’s what we’re checking out this summer:
1. Deep Work by Cal Newport
2. Educated by Tara Westover
3. Founder Brand by Dave Gerhart
Have you read any of these?
If you enjoyed this, the best compliment we could receive would be if you shared it with one person or restacked it on Substack.
What we do at Learn YOUR English
2. Teacher Talking Time podcast here
3. CPD courses for teachers here
