Hidden racism


Written by - Linda Ward, Canada

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Introduction

“Racism in Canada is subtle; implicit. That is racism is usually hidden…At the same time these views exist beside public beliefs which underlie assumptions that racism does not exist in Canada” (Madibbo, 2006, p. 142). Racism involves discrimination, segregation, exclusion and power imbalances and a complex mix of race, gender, religion, culture, and language. It is rooted in history and creates the other in society reinforcing our differences and causing fear. Racism is a social construct that is easy to define but not always easy to see.

Newcomers come to Canada expecting their new country to be multicultural with acceptance of diverse cultures, religions, languages, and experience. For many newcomers, this may not be the case.  Continue Reading →

Categories:
LINC
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Our Silent Journey: Supporting English language learners to adapt to the classroom 


Written by - Ricardo-Martín Marroquín, Canada

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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 in the classroom, school community, and in their own communities with the purpose of helping each student become successful. Hence, the core of this message is to provide strategies that may support newcomers to feel positive about their learning, as teachers become more aware about their practices in and outside of the classroom. For this reason, we will focus on the settlement curve and explain it,  Continue Reading →

Categories:
culture, Curriculum, EAL, ESL, Experiential, Uncategorised
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Teaching EFL in the Sultanate of Oman


Written by - Barbara Stasiuk, Canada

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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 and warm except for the unique Khareef (fall) season when the monsoon-like weather turns the desert into a verdant green with a constant cloudy drizzle. Coconuts, papayas, and bananas abound here and recently desert farming is expanding the Dhofar region’s agricultural products, which have been heavily based upon camels, cattle, and goats.

Since the EAP market shrunk suddenly in Canada during the pandemic,  Continue Reading →

Categories:
EAL, ESL, Uncategorised
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The benefits of having a little quiet time


Written by - Staci-Anne Nogami, Japan

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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 emotionally connect with material. For these reasons, I give my ESL students ample time to simply sit and collect their thoughts because I believe that having quiet moments in class is not only necessary but can be therapeutic for students and the teacher. This paper aims to illustrate the benefits of quiet time for ESL students and how teachers can implement this into their class.  Continue Reading →

Categories:
culture, ESL, Reflection, Uncategorised
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ELL teachers create cultural video projects  


Written by - Sukhdeep Birdi, Kawaldeep Ghuman, & Harjit Chauhan, Canada

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Sukhdeep Birdi, Kawaldeep Ghuman, and Harjit Chauhan are ELL teachers in the Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows school district in British Columbia. After years of teaching ELL students, they noticed one common theme when it came to celebrating calendar holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. The theme is that their students excitedly shared and made their own cultural connections related to the holidays. The ELL teachers realized that the students felt comfortable sharing their cultural celebrations, festivals, and holiday traditions during small group literacy times, but many students did not know how, or felt too shy to share with their peers. The three teachers began to explore how to create authentic resources highlighting student experiences.

What is Diwali?   Continue Reading →

Categories:
ESL
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Spotlight — Raj Bhandari


Written by - An interview with Raj Bhandari

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You presented at the 2022 TESL Ontario Conference (Integrating web-based formative assessment in test preparation courses). What is web-based formative assessment and why and how did it grab your attention originally? 

I believe that assessing learners’ language abilities is an essential part of language learning and teaching. In order to ensure success in language education, language educators must recognize the gap between what students are capable of and what they need to know to complete a task successfully. Observing and comparing a student’s performance helps teachers identify this gap and tailor future lessons accordingly. How can we do that? The answer is formative assessment. Formative assessment is used to identify learning gaps and assess learners’  Continue Reading →

Categories:
Interview, Spotlight
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Multimodality-enhanced teaching: Fostering global citizenship and intercultural competence in ELT


Written by - Heejin Song & Jacqueline Ng, York University, Canada

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*For images, please see the PDF version of the article. 

Introduction 

This article showcases multimodality-enhanced learning tasks that embrace learners’ linguistic and cultural diversity as an asset to advance their oral communication skills, promote global citizenship (UNESCO, 2018), and cultivate intercultural competence (Byram, 1996) in a university English communication course. Drawing upon Cummins’ (2009) transformative multiliteracies pedagogy and García’s (2009) translanguaging that highlight affirming diversity and acknowledging a fluid flow of ‘languaging’ (Swain, 2006) in transnationals’ language learning as a source of empowerment in teaching, we exemplify two innovative multimodal projects called My Cooking Show and Plurilingual and Intercultural Expression Corner. These projects invited learners to activate and share their prior cultural and linguistic knowledge base with the aim of developing their cross-cultural and cross-linguistic awareness,  Continue Reading →

Categories:
culture, Curriculum, ESL, Experiential, Identity, Language
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Adapting teaching materials for L2 pragmatics instruction


Written by - Alex Ross, University of British Colombia, Canada

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Introduction

In the past three decades, English as an additional language (EAL) researchers and practitioners have become increasingly concerned with the instruction of second language (L2) pragmatics. Broadly defined as the ability to communicate and interpret meaning in social situations (Taguchi, 2015), pragmatics is an essential component of many models of communicative competence (Timpe-Laughlin et al., 2015). Typically, descriptions of L2 pragmatic competence comprise two parts. The first part, known as sociopragmatics, involves knowledge of how contextual factors (e.g. the relationship between speakers) inform language use. The second component, referred to as pragmalinguistic competence, entails knowledge of how particular linguistic forms (e.g. modals to make polite requests) are used to convey pragmatic competence (Leech, 1983). During the 1980s and 1990s,  Continue Reading →

Categories:
communication, EAL, Pragmatics
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Perspectives on classroom writing assessment literacy in ESL/EFL contexts


Written by - Ameni Benali, York University, Canada

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Abstract

Despite the importance of writing assessment in ESL/EFL classrooms, it is not getting enough attention either from teacher education program designers or from teachers themselves. It is commonly believed that assessment courses do not have much to offer to classroom teachers compared to high stake tests. Some classroom teachers avoid learning about writing assessment skills and knowledge because they are against their beliefs or because they feel overwhelmed with the effective assessment guidelines. As for teacher education courses and graduate programs, they include either limited or no instructions about writing assessment literacy (Crusan, 2010; Weigle, 2007). This paper investigates second and foreign language teachers’ knowledge, practices, and beliefs about writing assessment and the role of teacher education in improving teachers’ writing assessment literacy.  Continue Reading →

Categories:
Assessment, ESL, Literacy, Writing
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The Native Speaker Myth and re-storying oneself within a disempowering discourse


Written by - Ivana Stanisavljevic, Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, Canada

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It was in high school that I started toying with the idea of pursuing teaching as a career. Having not known much about what I needed to pursue for this career path initially, I assumed my plan to earn a university degree in literature would be enough. When I found out that teacher’s college was a necessity as well, I was somewhat surprised. I wondered, what about teacher’s college would make me a teacher per se, was not simply knowing the subject matter that I would be teaching enough? This is a topic which I continue to ponder to this day: What makes a teacher? To be more precise, what makes a competent teacher? Is knowing the subject matter simply enough or is there something more?  Continue Reading →

Categories:
ESL, Identity, Language, Teaching
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Professionalism in TESL


Written by - Mostafa Kosari, Canada

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Abstract

This paper presents a discussion of what professionalism means in the workplace and how it can shape the relationship between the employees and the employee-employer relationship. The paper also hopes to promote the professional attitude and the high standards of professional behaviour expected of employees in the multicultural and highly-competitive ESL environment. A multicultural ESL teaching environment, like the one in Canada, might create some unwanted and unwelcomed conflicts among ESL teachers. Unwanted because it does not make sense for the highly-educated professionals to voluntarily cause conflict. Unwelcomed because no employer by any stretch of imagination should be aspiring to create a toxic workplace. Assuming that all employers have the best of intentions, all employees might not necessarily.  Continue Reading →

Categories:
ESL, Teaching
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Learner variability in English for Academic Purposes classes


Written by - Andreia Arai-Rissman, George Brown College & Seneca College, Canada

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As educators, we may often hear the term learner variability, especially when working with English for Academic Purposes (EAP) because classes consist of learners from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Before I delve into defining learner variability, I invite you to take a moment to reflect on yourself as a learner at a specific time in your life and ask yourself these questions: How old were you then? Which language(s) were spoken in your home? Which specific cultures do you think may have contributed to shaping your behaviours or activities as you grew up? How did your personal life affect your learning performance? Do you think you learned the same way as your peers did—by using the same strategies or taking the same amount of time,  Continue Reading →

Categories:
EAP, Language, pedagogy
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