Astrid Jannke, CEO, Travelling Teacher®
Astrid Jannke is the CEO of Travelling Teacher® in Germany, a company providing consultation, coaching, and training services to organizations to help them successfully integrate their inpats and prepare their expats regarding language, communication, and culture. She specializes in teaching German as a Foreign language as well as Business and Technical English, having worked as a lecturer at various universities in Karlsruhe (University of Applied Sciences, Karlshochschule International University, DHBW Cooperative State University Baden-Württemberg) and for multinational companies such as Daimler-Chrysler/Mercedes Benz, L'Oréal, Bosch, Siemens, Michelin, and many more in Germany for over 16 years.
She is a certified intercultural trainer (dgikt) and a certified life coach (evercoach by Mindvalley, ICF and EMCC accredited) as well as a certified six-phase meditation trainer (Mindvalley). In addition, she is a published co-translator with Springer and a proofreader with the European Institute for Energy Research (EIfER). From 2016 to date, she has been teaching refugees from various backgrounds and cultures, mainly in the INTEGRA programme (funded by DAAD/German Academic Exchange Service) at the DHBW (Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg/Cooperative State University Baden-Württemberg).
“Nature inspires me as well as people who are kind, helpful, authentic, and innovative. We all have a special gift within us.”
Astrid Jannke
Astrid Jannke, LinkedIn
During the pandemic, she has started to work online only and worked with clients in more than 20 countries worldwide. Her current mission is to help her clients become more authentic and peaceful in their work and life as well as more confident in the use of their foreign language(s) by effectively combining Language Coaching with Life Coaching. In her free time, Astrid likes hiking, reading, and writing. She crossed the Alps on foot in 2016, hiking from Oberstdorf (Germany) to Merano (Italy), became a certified hiking guide in 2018 and is currently preparing for another crossing of the Alps as well as working on her first book.
What do you like about your current role?
I'm currently creating new programs for a different approach to language training and language usage. It’s a “learning by doing” approach. The idea is to offer focused solutions for various practical work and life-related problems in the field of language while keeping in mind that time never seems to be sufficient when we need and want to get so many things done. So, there will be online programs which can be followed according to one’s own schedule and available time, being backed up by weekly group Q&A sessions and a community of learners for mutual support. In these programs, people can put their foreign language (English or German) into practice and at the same time acquire valuable knowledge in fields that should enable them to increase their performance at work and in life. The programs will be mini-courses which will not take more than 4-8 weeks to complete and will strictly focus on providing solutions and training for one area of performance each. They will have clear attainable goals and will save time in the long run by training for example smart reading, getting more confident in writing e-mails, telephoning, small talk, or presentations in English or German. The first digital programs have been planned to be launched in February 2023. Another area of interest is to support impats/expats by providing a combination of Language and Life Coaching, focusing on using the foreign language for conversation and at the same time bringing light into areas in which clarity might be needed, be it intercultural topics and issues in the new country and/or workplace, introspection and finding new orientation in life or simply growing personally as a human being.
What are your favourite books?
There are many. For example, The Buddha and the Badass (V. Lakhiani) - or: Happiness Unlimited (BK Shivani) - on the level of business and personal growth. From the field of fiction: Novecento (A. Baricco)
Who do you most admire and why?
Vishen Lakhiani for having created Mindvalley, for his inspiring energy, work, and his promotion of the positive effects of meditation, Sadhguru and BK Shivani for their wisdom which I find incredibly helpful.
What is the best advice you have ever received?
Be grateful for everything, because everything in life happens not to you, but for you.
What motivates or inspires you?
Nature inspires me as well as people who are kind, helpful, authentic, and innovative. We all have a special gift within us. Helping people find theirs, so they can develop it and contribute in the best way to life and society, helps me to move forward.
What would like to highlight and share with our audience?
Everything happens for a reason, challenges are gifts and that basically everything in life brings something good if we allow ourselves to see it.