CONTACT | Literacy
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…
Generative derailments: Collaborative curriculum design with older adult language and literacy learners
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Tension is central to teaching. All the same, I somehow always feel surprised when my lesson plans come off the rails, failure haunting me as I try to understand what went wrong. As an adult literacy and language teacher, my curriculum development process has often felt similar to the halting, meandering progress of…
Artificial intelligence in education: A practitioner-informed perspective on opportunities, challenges, and human-centered integration
Abstract
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in education is transforming teaching and learning across global contexts. While existing literature highlights the potential of AI to support personalized learning, improve efficiency, and expand access, less attention has been given to practitioner-informed perspectives grounded in sustained classroom experience. This paper draws on 19 years of international teaching and curriculum development…
Building bridges: Reimagining adult literacy and language education
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When I started teaching an adult literacy and language classroom in a small community centre, I was not prepared for the tensions and joys specific to working with adult literacy learners (ALLs). These learners were not a culturally, linguistically, or educationally homogenous group. They differed in languages, goals, cultural knowledge,…
Recommendations for the inclusion of mathematics education in language instruction for newcomers to Canada (LINC)
Abstract
This paper draws on literature that examines the underpinnings of language and math education in Canada as well as on the author’s own professional observations and reflections as an adult English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) educator in Toronto, Ontario in order to advocate for the inclusion of mathematics education in the LINC program. It evaluates the program’s…
Perspectives on classroom writing assessment literacy in ESL/EFL contexts
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…
