So, after a long-ish break, Sponge Chats are back! Although, we are branching out a little now, and we have a new ‘sub-series’: Perspectives. The Sponge Chats Perspectives series will be intereviews with ELT professionals who are specialists within a certain field, and we’ll go into detail about the what, why, when and how of their area. Don’t worry, though, as Sponge Chats ‘proper’ will still remain, and there will be more chats going into detail about the journeys we take to get to where we are.
Kicking off the Perspectives series is someone who has been involved in ELT for many years and needs no introduction – Nicola Prentis. Nicola has been involved in materials writing, teacher training, blogging, presenting, and now training ELT professionals and writers how to invest their hard-earned cash (you can learn more about this on her site The Chilled Investor). She’s also authored over 10 books (she says she is a writer at heart)! This chat was really enjoyable for me as investing is something that I’ve been interested in for some time, and in fact started dabbling in a few years ago. It was interesting to hear Nicola’s perspective on the idea of financial literacy and how many of us really are probably not doing too well in this area (her financial health quiz is a good place to start if you want to know more). We also touched on the ever-important topic of pensions and retirement – something that many of us in this industry probably don’t think about enough.
And, of course, we touched on her The Chilled Investor course, something I think many of you will be interested in. For those of you who are looking to take your knowledge of money further, you can get in touch with Nicola through her website or through LinkedIN.
And it wouldn’t be a Sponge Chat without resources, although this time in the form of podcasts predominantly:
Rachel Roberts business course – Earn Learn Thrive
SPONGE ELT 
Nicola is great, and I’m really pleased that she has set up The Chilled Investor. I went through a similar path to “discovering pensions” and investing this year (and what a learning curve it’s been to have gotten started on the stock markets this particular year!). [My blog post on this is: https://zproofeditorial.wordpress.com/2022/11/16/finance-for-freelancers-how-to-make-money-work-for-you-saving-investing-pensions/%5D
It’s certainly an area that deserves greater attention, particularly to those who work in the likes of the English teaching field, as many of us have university-level education but are often missing out financially compared to peers that go down the standard graduate paths.
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Hi Zoe! Sorry about the delayed reply – your comment went into my spam folder for some reason 😦 Yes, couldn’t agree more!
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