Chicago to Guangdong: How Prentice Went From EAL Teacher to Founder of His Own Consulting Company

What you'll immediately notice when you start talking to Prentice Alston is how much he cares about his students. Yeah, there's a lot of people who give lip service to this, "my students are important to me", but Prentice takes this to a whole 'nutha level. He's very candid about his mistakes, but he's able to do this because he's worked tirelessly to improve his learner's experience. He seems to frequently reflect own feelings and results and use them as a guidepost to whether more work needed to be done to step up his approach.

He was able to chat with me from his office on a busy morning, a little bit later in the interview we jumped to no video to be able to continue (goddarn internet, everyone jumps on at lunch!!) ... I am delighted and thankful for the opportunity to talk to this wonderful teacher and Skillagent.

Okay, let's get into the details of my conversation with Prentice.

His Target Audience: Adult Learners (Chinese Corporate Sector)

Here's what we cover in this interview: 

1. Where Prentice was before joining Skillagents.
2. His experience and impressions teaching and living in China over the past 13 years.
3. Elements of the Skillagents program he found most beneficial for his work.
4. How his approach to language learning has evolved over the years and he’s been able to in some ways “flip instruction on its head”.
5. What trust and community have to do with active learning and getting results in the classroom. 
6. What kept him going and motivated to continue implementing strategies that require so much more work than traditional lectures. 
7. How he continues to use the strategies in his daily work, his most impactful and memorable ideas and concepts from the course. 
8. Bonus: How he defines “happiness” 

Prentice’s #1 piece of advice for new Skillagents members: 

Connect with Prentice on LinkedIn: https://www.dhirubhai.net/in/prentice-alston-8a8457117/

Get in touch directly via email: [email protected]

Or find him on WeChat using Palston_CCJM

Enjoy and share!!