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Finding voice through story: Supporting EFL writers with digital storytelling
Storytelling has long been a powerful tool for teaching and learning. Across cultures and disciplines, it allows educators and students to connect personal experience with academic content. In language classrooms, storytelling can take many forms, like written narratives, digital stories, reflective journals, or oral accounts. Yet many teachers hesitate to incorporate storytelling into writing instruction. Time constraints, curriculum demands, assessment…
Teacher, I write a photograph
Introduction
Writers make the blind see. We are talking about readers here. Readers see only what writers show them. I tell my students this, adding that luckily readers can see photographs and it is their job to make good photographs.
Then we get down to business, and I run through a drill that goes…
Diversity, equity, and inclusion: Dialoguing with TESL Ontario members
Abstract
This article reports and comments on findings from a TESL Ontario membership survey and synchronous dialogue session inquiring about challenges and opportunities related to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in English Language Teaching classrooms and workplaces. The findings reveal that TESL Ontario members have most frequently experienced ageism and ethnic and cultural…
Our Silent Journey: Supporting English language learners to adapt to the classroom
Introduction
It is evident that the number of English language learners (ELLs) has increased in the last few years. In Ontario, more than 25% of the student population are learning English as a second language (L2) (Statistics Canada, 2020). Given that numbers are increasing, it is important to know how to support ELLs…
Teaching EFL in the Sultanate of Oman
An ESL teacher goes EFL in Salalah, Oman
In mid-December 2021, I embarked on a new odyssey—teaching EFL in a Foundations Program at Dhofar University in Salalah, Oman. The location is described as bucolic as it is cradled between the coast of the Arabian Sea and the Dhofar Mountains, and the weather is usually sunny…
The benefits of having a little quiet time
Introduction
Class time and the interaction with other students is crucial to learning and developing in any second language. But more importantly, it is important to have the time to reflect and mentally digest information you are learning, your own personal thoughts, and feelings on any given topic, as well as being able to…
