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As Phil Collins once sang, “In teaching you will learn and in learning you will teach.” So, what can language teachers learn about language learning from learning a language? We meet with friends, family and special guests to hear about how language learning experiences affect and inform our views of language learning. In our longest podcast ever, we hear from Patsy Lightbown, Professor at Concordia University Canada about language learning experiences in Africa and North America; from teaching guru Ben Beaumont, from Trinity College London about the trauma of learning French at high school; from Janice Thorburn, former German and French teacher about learning German through grammar translation and what that meant for her teaching later in her career; from our regular podcast guest Matt Courtois, about language immersion in Nepal, Russia, China and Bolivia led to very different outcomes; and from author and teacher trainer Wendy Arnold about how in spite of being a native English speaker in Peru, she failed her English exams at school.
L-R Ross Thorburn, Tracy Yu, Janice Thorburn, Jenny Ma, Ben Beaumont and Diedrick van Gorp
Matt Courtois and Ross Thorburn