Nik Peachey is a two-time British Council ELTons award winner for innovation in English language teaching and has been short-listed six times. He’s also the founder and director of pedagogy at PeacheyPublications, an independent digital publishing company based in the UK that designs digital learning materials for English language classrooms.

To say Nik is familiar with the education sector would be an understatement. Since 1990, Nik's worked as a teacher, trainer, and educational consultant. He also has more than 25 years of experience with online, remote, and blended learning environments.

He’ll be joining us at ElliiCon2022 on September 15.

Something you may not know about Nik is that he studied music in university and taught guitar at a prison. That’s when he realized how much he enjoyed teaching.

But it was only after spending time in Egypt that he discovered just how deep his passion for teaching went. While in Egypt, Nik received his CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) certification and taught English to refugees.

“I enjoyed helping people in that way and meeting people from other cultures,” said Nik. “I got hooked on teaching.”

For 10 years, Nik taught English all over the world.

In 1999, he became interested in technology. This led him to go back to school to get his master’s in educational technology.

The story behind PeacheyPublications

PeacheyPublications grew out of Nik’s desire to write a book about educational technology.

He spoke to publishers about his idea for the book, but, unfortunately, they were limited on what they could do in book form. At the time, no one was interested in publishing a digital book.

That's when Nik decided to take matters into his own hands.

He wrote and published the book himself using the money he had raised from crowdfunding on Indiegogo. Later, he entered the book for a British Council ELTons award and won.

Nik Peachey is pictured here holding his 2016 British Council ELTon Award for Innovation in Teacher Resources. He's also won the 2012 British Council ELTon Award for Excellence in Course Innovation.

At the time, Nik thought to himself, If I want to keep [publishing books], then I have to find a better way to do it.

To write more books and publish them quicker, Nik founded PeacheyPublications.

Today, PeacheyPublications has 180 products, from lesson plans to books to online courses.

“We get great feedback from the teachers who use our products,” said Nik.

In the classroom

As someone who's passionate about educational technology, Nik believes that technology shouldn’t just be used by teachers. Students should be using it too, and it shouldn’t just be about replacing homework either.

“Technology should be connecting them to people and enhancing their abilities to be creative,” Nik said.

He also believes students should come away from a lesson learning three things. 

“They should learn something about the language, something about the world around them, and something about themselves. The goal isn’t language learning; language learning is the means to the goal."

Learn about intentional listening with Nik at ElliiCon2022

On September 15, Nik will be joining us at ElliiCon2022 to talk about how to develop understanding through intentional listening. You’ll discover activities that will help your students…

• empathize with others
• listen with the intention to better understand on a more emotional level
• build dialogue and find common ground with those that hold different worldviews than their own

Join us at ElliiCon2022!

Want to attend Nik's presentation? Register for ElliiCon2022 (it's free!).

To learn more about Nik, follow him on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.