All posts by Nicola Carozza

Spotlight — Lorenzo Sclocco


Written by - An interview with Lorenzo Sclocco

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You are an advocate for professional development–how do you maintain professional development with a busy schedule and how would you encourage others to get involved and develop their skills?

Teachers are life-long learners, so I always try to develop and hone my skills. Most of the opportunities I hear about come from LinkedIn: It’s thanks to LinkedIn that during the pandemic I had come in closer contact with the instructional design world and the content development field. In the last three years, I came to the realization that teachers have so many transferrable skills: research, project and time management, critical thinking, creativity, leadership (yes, leadership too!). This is the advice I would give my other colleagues—it might be an unconventional one: Create or polish your profile on LinkedIn where you can start your networking.  Continue Reading →

Categories:
Interview, Spotlight
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EGAP: What is missing?


Written by - Farnaz Karimian, Amy Parker, & Xiaoming Li, Canada

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The number of international students seeking enrollment in higher education in Canada has increased four times in just twenty years from 122,665 in 2000 to 621,565 in 2021 (Crossman et al., 2022). Thus, it is evident that there will continue to be a need for more EAP programs to prepare EAL (English as an Additional Language) students for their post-secondary studies. But before delving deep into this issue, it is important to first discuss the nuanced, yet meaningful distinction between EGAP (English for General Academic Purposes) and ESAP (English for Specific Academic Purposes). EGAP instructors typically focus on general English language proficiency required for post-secondary level education, whereas ESAP instructors center their curriculum on teaching English for specific academic purposes,  Continue Reading →

Categories:
EAP, Research
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EAP teacher identity negotiation and its impact on our teaching practice: Research insight from the public college system in Ontario


Written by - Plamen Kushkiev, Canada

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Rationale for research into EAP teacher identity

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) pre-sessional/pathway classes are a popular course offering at private and public institutions in Ontario (Kushkiev, 2022) as Canada ranks amongst the most popular study destinations for English language learning (Languages Canada- Bonard Research Report, 2021). Around 40 % of Canadian ESL and EAP programs are offered by institutions in Ontario (Languages Canada, 2020). International and domestic students opt to complete an EAP program as a pathway into their college or university studies without the need to write internationally administered English language proficiency tests to meet the admissions requirements of their institution of choice.

Due to the lack of a national or provincial institutionalized accrediting body similar to the British Association of Lecturers in English for Academic Purposes (BALEAP),  Continue Reading →

Categories:
EAP, Identity, Teaching
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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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