What is ‘talking shop’?

Talking Shop is the new blog, podcast and webinar series from The ELT Workshop. It’s going to be ELT content done right: enjoyable, informative, and social. 

Why are you starting a new project?

When Mike and Tim originally met in 2014(!), it was through #KELTchat: a series of Twitter discussions for teachers based in Korea. In 2020, #KELTchat is defunct, neither of us live in Korea and both the world and the internet are very different places. Since then we have, between us, presented at an unreasonable number conferences, met hundreds of teachers, organised a series of conferences, started a podcast, gotten a degree and published two books. Through all of this, one strand that has stuck around from #KELTchat is that teachers talking to teachers about teaching is a valuable thing. We want to continue to do the things that we think are cool and helpful for teachers. We’d also like to do them in a way where we can use company resources to help run them and where we can justify putting lots of time into them because it’s ‘for work’.

Aren’t publisher-run webinars, blogs and podcasts corny?

Yes, inexorably so. However, it’s important to think about why that is. No one likes to sit through something where they know they’re being sold to or where the presenter is holding back so you’ll spend money. At The ELT Workshop, we want to publish books and we’re not averse to making Scrooge McDuck piles of money from publishing books. That said, we’re not reliant on publishing money to live. Every time we sell a book, we’re more excited to know someone is reading something we believe in than to cut a cheque. We might talk about topics in areas where we’re publishing books, but we’ll always work to make Talking Shop as valuable as possible.  

What can I expect?

We’re going to be doing two sessions a month. These will be on the second Sunday and Fourth Wednesday of the month. The first one will be more of a workshop where we discuss an issue. The second will be more of a social session where we invite a guest to talk about what’s been on their mind recently and then go and hang out and have further discussion. On top of this, we’ll have newsletters, podcasts, and blogs

How do I get involved?

We’ll send out invites to live sessions via our mailing list. These are, and will always be, free.