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I don’t know if it’s restricted to English.
If someone won a Grammy Award, even if he doesn’t win a Grammy Award, we can describe him as “He is a (previous) Grammy winner.”
But If someone taught students, but he doesn’t teach students, why don’t we describe him as “He is a (previous) teacher”?
Compare these two definitions from the Cambridge Dictionary: the crucial difference is highlighted.
previous: happening or existing before something or someone else
former: of or in an earlier time; before the present time or in the past
It's also important to understand what award means.
award: a prize or an amount of money that is given to someone following an official decision
When somebody is awarded a degree, it's permanent: even if they lose the certificate, the official decision still stands, and they still have a degree. In the same way, somebody who has received a Grammy award is a Grammy award winner forever, even if they lose the sculpture.
Grammy awards are an annual event. Somebody who wins an award this year is a Grammy award winner. Somebody who won an award in a previous year (one before the current year) still has the award, and can still be described as a Grammy award winner, but also can be described as a previous Grammy award winner, to make it clear that their award was not this year (before something else). Because they are still Grammy award winners, you can't describe them as former Grammy award winners.
We refer to somebody that used to teach but no longer does so as a former teacher or as an ex-teacher, because they were a teacher before the present time, but they are no longer a teacher.
If a person used to teach you, and now they don't teach you but somebody else does, the first teacher is before somebody else, so you can describe them as "my previous teacher". In this case, it means the teacher before the current teacher.
The distinction here is between whether the title is describing something that someone is currently doing, or something that has been achieved:
A teacher is someone who is currently teaching, and a student is someone who is currently studying. When they stop, they become a "former teacher" or "ex-teacher".
A Grammy Award winner is someone who has won that award - they are not currently in the process of winning it, and nobody is going to take it away from them later. They will not generally be referred to as a "former Grammy Award winner" or "ex-Grammy Award winner", because the achievement doesn't have an end date.
The form "a previous Grammy Award winner" actually means something slightly different - they are "the winner of a previous Grammy Award". That is, they are still a winner, but they are not the winner of the most recent award. You can similarly say "the 2019 Grammy Award winner", that is "the winner of the 2019 Grammy Award".
We could actually include a third category: titles which only apply until someone takes them from you. For instance, if you break a World Record, you are a World Record holder continuously regardless of what you do; but someone else can break the record, and you will no longer be the World Record holder. This makes it like the teacher case, rather than like the award-winner case - you can be a "former World Record holder".
Getting a Grammy is an achievement. Being a teacher is an employment. Having a title. (A title is a word or phrase that shows a person’s rank or job).
Olympian: a competitor in the Olympic Games, just like your Grammy winner has achieved something and that will always remain so. Your teacher is also likely to be a graduate; (a person who has a first degree from a university or college) or even more qualified. They might have retired from teaching but they are still a graduate.
When you no longer follow a previous occupation you are no longer referred to by the name of that vocation, unless it was accompanied by a title.
Colonel, President, Doctor (of philosophy). Official titles are usually retained for life. Former President Clinton is still Mr President. Unless the title is revoked for example, Prince Harry formerly His Royal Highness The Duke of Sussex, Earl of Dumbarton and Baron Kilkeel; before his HRH was revoked. Military titles usually denote if the holder is in active service or retired. Example, Colonel E. Smith (retd)
The word you’re looking for is former, for example, “She is a former teacher.” Some other ways to express this are:
In American English, one of the times we can say a previous is when a position is held by a series of people, one at a time. This especially applies if it’s an award. So, someone who was a Grammy winner in the past is a previous Grammy winner. Michael Phelps and Simone Biles are previous Olympic gold medalists (in different events). And someone who won a Teacher of the Year Award in the past is “a previous Teacher of the Year.” You can also say “former” here.
When you say the previous person (or team), you’re referring to the last person to do so before now, so (as of 2021) the Milwaukee Bucks are the current NBA Champions (in 2021), the LA Lakers are the previous champions (in 2020), and many teams are former champions (before 2021).
It's to do with the meanings of the words. Unfortunately English dictionaries are too terse to specify these definitions, but phrases like "winner" and "world record breaker" have the meaning "someone who wins or has won something", "someone who breaks a world record or has broken a world record". As soon as you achieve these statuses at least once, you retain them and can still be called a "winner" or "record breaker" in present tense, because the fact it was achieved in the past is how English listeners understand the word.
But phrases like "teacher" and "world record holder" are temporary statuses, having only the meaning "someone who currently teaches", "someone who currently holds the world record".
This effect isn't English-only, I know of some other languages that also have classes of permanent-once-achieved statuses (like "winner") for which present tense can always be used after gaining the status, and temporary statuses (like "teacher") for which the tense matters depending on the person's: in Spanish the Hugh Jackman/Usain Bolt example is directly translatable, in French there's no word for "winner" as it's used here (afaik) but you have other examples like "président" (temporary) and "professeur" (permanent post-PhD). Icelandic can directly translate the above Hugh Jackman/Usain Bolt example, as can Dutch.
Since dictionaries don't tell you, how can you know whether a status belongs to the permanent-once-achieved category or the temporary category? As with lots of things in English, only by paying attention to common usage. However I came up with a heuristic that might go part of the way to explain the categorisation of the verb + er words your question is about: if the verb is something that happens once and only for a single instant, then the -er word derived from it is permanent-once-achieved. For example, "winner" comes from "to win" which only happens at the single instant of winning. "World record breaker" comes from "to break", which you only do at the single instant of breaking the record. However, "teacher" comes from "to teach" which happens continuously; you teach a class for many instances of time in a row, it's ongoing. Similarly "world record holder" comes from "to hold", and you can hold an object in your hands for many instances of time in a row; it's another continuous verb.
So, "winner" can be applied after-the-fact unlike "teacher" because the words have different meanings. "Winner" is "someone who wins or has won something", "teacher" is "someone who teaches". Since these meanings aren't always thoroughly documented in the dictionary, you learn them by observing common English usage or (tentatively) through the heuristic that verbs for continuous actions (like teaching) derive temporary statuses, and verbs for instantaneous actions (like winning) derive permanent-once-achieved statuses. This effect doesn't seem to be restricted to English.
