Languages Pedagogy Podcast

Students have instant access to answers. But access to answers is not the same as learning. In Part 2, Susan Grimes and Mike take the conversation beyond online tutoring and confront a bigger question:  What do students actually need to thrive in an increasingly digital education system? From instant gratification and declining patience to standardized testing, test anxiety, AI, critical thinking,...

What if a struggling student doesn’t need another lesson—but someone who finally sees how they learn? In Part 1, Mike sits down with  Susan Grimes, founder of Tutoring with Ms. Susan LLC , to explore why personalized online tutoring can uncover learning gaps, rebuild confidence, and give students something crowded classrooms often struggle to provide: individual attention. From reading, writing, a...

What if the student who seems to know the least simply hasn’t been given the language support to show what they know? In The Pedagogy Spotlight 3, Mike Llerena welcomes Aylin Erengul Gregg to explore a question schools cannot afford to ignore: are we helping multilingual learners thrive or asking them to leave part of themselves behind? At the heart of this conversation is LEAVES: Language Exposur...

What if saying “I was wrong” doesn’t weaken a leader—but makes people trust their leadership more? Real leadership isn’t pretending to have every answer. It’s developing enough self-awareness to recognize your blind spots—and enough courage to let others point them out. In Part 2 of Mike’s conversation with  Christina Melton , co-author of  Fearless Leadership , the discussion moves deeper into vu...

What if the biggest obstacle to changing education isn’t policy, funding, or technology—but fear? When teachers are afraid to make mistakes and leaders are afraid to take risks, innovation doesn’t simply slow down.  It stops. In Part 1 of this powerful conversation, Mike sits down with  Christina Melton , co-author of  Fearless Leadership , former superintendent, state-level education leader, and...

What if the biggest thing stopping teachers from building their own education business isn't their teaching ability—but everything that comes after it? In this edition of  The Spotlight , Mike sits down with  Ali from Inglés con Ali  for a conversation about something more teachers are beginning to consider: moving beyond simply teaching classes and building something of their own. The convers...

Why does the Australian accent sound “difficult” to so many English learners? The answer may have less to do with Australia—and far more to do with what English you've been exposed to. In Part 2 of my conversation with Australian accent coach  Amanda Boyce , we go deeper into Australian English, accent perception, pronunciation training and the rapidly changing world of AI-powered language lea...

You can know every grammar rule in English and still struggle to be understood. That’s the uncomfortable truth behind this conversation with Australian accent coach  Amanda Boyce , founder of  Aussie English with Amanda . In Part 1, we challenge one of the biggest priorities in traditional English education: the obsession with grammatical accuracy. Because real communication isn't simply about...

You know the grammar. You remember the words. So why do you still freeze when it’s time to speak? In the first episode of  The Pedagogy Spotlight , Mike welcomes  Arkady Zilberman , inventor of  AnyLingo , to challenge a provocative idea: the advice that works for exceptional polyglots may fail many everyday language learners. Is the problem our methods, our expectations—or our understanding of ho...

What happens when a child learns that success requires hiding part of who they are? Part 2 goes deeper. Mike and  Patrice Thompson  move beyond classroom strategies to examine the psychological, cultural, and institutional consequences of language exclusion—and why genuine multilingual education requires much more than one passionate teacher. Students who feel pressured to suppress their home lang...

What if the language policy designed to help students learn is actually asking them to leave part of themselves at the classroom door? In Part 1 of this powerful conversation, Mike sits down with  Patrice Thompson , founder of Connects Us Consulting and creator of  The Translanguaging Teacher , to challenge one of education’s most persistent assumptions: that more English automatically means bette...

Being multilingual sounds impressive. Maintaining multiple languages? That’s where things get messy. You can know a word in three languages and suddenly forget it in your strongest one. Your Spanish improves while your French gets rusty. You code-switch without thinking. And the language you once spoke confidently can suddenly feel frustratingly distant. Welcome to the reality of multilingualism....

What if “becoming fluent” is actually the wrong goal? For millions of language learners, fluency has become the finish line—the point where they finally feel qualified to say,  “Yes, I speak this language.”  But what if that mindset is holding learners back? In Episode 249 of the  Languages Pedagogy Podcast , Mike sits down with multilingual educator and language coach  Megan Nicholls  to challeng...

What happens when technology removes the very struggle the brain needs in order to learn? In Part 2, Dr. Paula Cushanick takes the conversation deeper into memory, rehearsal, cognitive load, psychological safety, relationships and the human conditions multilingual students need to transform exposure into lasting learning. We explore why short-term knowledge does not automatically become long-term...

More screen time does not automatically mean more learning. And for multilingual students, the difference can be enormous. In Part 1 of this conversation, Dr. Paula Cushanick joins the Languages Pedagogy Podcast to challenge one of education’s most expensive assumptions: that greater use of educational technology automatically produces better academic and language outcomes. Drawing from her doctor...

AI can make teaching faster. But what happens when it starts making learners think less? In Part 2, Michelle Land goes deeper into the forces reshaping multilingual education—from leadership and professional identity to artificial intelligence, teacher burnout, student relationships, assessment, and the human connection no algorithm can replace. The conversation begins with a challenge for educato...

Teaching multilingual learners is never just about teaching English. It is about understanding rights, trauma, identity, belonging—and knowing when a teacher must become an advocate. In Part 1 of this powerful conversation, Mike sits down with multilingual educator and educational leader Michelle Land to explore the journey from classroom teaching to advocacy and leadership. Drawing on more than t...

AI is changing education faster than teacher training can keep up. So what should language teachers actually be learning now? In Part 2 with teacher educator  Leandro Paladino , we move beyond professional development into a much bigger question: What will it mean to be a great language teacher in the future? AI literacy matters. Digital pedagogy matters. Critical thinking matters. But Leandro arg...

What if becoming a great teacher has less to do with knowing more and more to do with knowing when to step out of the spotlight? In Part 1 of this conversation, Mike sits down with teacher educator  Leandro Paladino  to challenge some of the assumptions shaping modern language education. Leandro shares one of the most important lessons of his career:  the teacher is not the protagonist—the learner...

Great school culture cannot depend on one exceptional leader. Because if everything collapses when that person leaves, you never built a culture you built a dependency. In Part 2 of Mike's conversation with educational leader  Paul Collin , the discussion moves from diagnosing the school culture crisis to answering the harder question: How do we actually rebuild it? Paul explains why sustainab...

What if poor attendance, worsening behavior, and teacher burnout are not separate problems—but symptoms of the same broken school culture? And what if rebuilding a school starts with something as simple—and as difficult—as making people feel that they belong? In Part 1 of this powerful conversation, Mike sits down with educational leader, coach, and former headteacher  Paul Collin  to examine what...

Education isn’t waiting for teachers to catch up. The classroom is changing and so is our role inside it. Episode 240 marks the beginning of  Season 6 of the Languages Pedagogy Podcast , and this premiere asks one of the most important questions facing educators today:  What does good education actually look like now? AI is transforming access to knowledge. EdTech is reshaping classrooms. Multilin...

What happens when AI gets smarter, classrooms become more complex, and the definition of great teaching begins to change? Season 5 ends with one question bigger than any single episode:  What kind of education are we building for the next generation? In Episode 239, Mike looks back at a remarkable season of the  Languages Pedagogy Podcast  and the conversations that challenged how we think about ...

Speaking a language does not automatically qualify someone to teach it and holding a teaching certificate does not automatically guarantee that someone understands how children learn. Part 2 with  Laura Morales  goes much deeper. We move from the architecture of the reading brain into the systems surrounding it:  bilingual teacher preparation, native-speaker assumptions, literacy knowledge, classr...

A child who struggles to read is not necessarily a child who cannot learn. Sometimes, the real problem is that we are looking at the struggle through the wrong lens. In Part 1 of this powerful conversation, psychologist, bilingual educator, and literacy specialist  Laura Morales  joins the  Languages Pedagogy Podcast  to unpack what actually happens inside the reading brain—and why understanding t...