About Us

The TESL Ontario Blog Project was created because of the TESL Ontario members’ community. In 2013, members made it known that they wished to have a forum to share resources and learn from others’ experiences. Since 2014, we’ve been making it happen.

Our Vision

• To provide resources for TESL Ontario members by TESL Ontario members
• To share experiences and educational tips
• To open up dialogue and enhance learning for both students and educators

Who We Are

The blog is administered by Tamsin Cobb, Beth Beardall, Claire Green, Jessica Freitag, and Andrew Shedden, and contains posts from a diverse group of Guest Bloggers.

Tamsin Cobb	Hi, I’m Tamsin Cobb and I am the Blog Manager.  I love blogs: reading them, writing them, and creating them!  Blogs are great ways to share experiences, resources, and passion with people you know and people you may never know.
Beth Beardall	Hello fellow TESL Blog enthusiasts, my name is Beth Beardall, and I am the Blog Administrator for Guest Bloggers. I’m really excited to be a part of the TESL Ontario Blog Administrator Team and look forward to a great year. This opportunity brings together 3 of my passions: learning and getting great ideas from others, teaching or tutoring ESL and getting to know people from around the world, and, of course, copy editing and proofreading. I’ve been doing all three both on a volunteer basis and professionally for more than 15 years.In case you were wondering, my other passion is Salsa dancing. Now if only there was a way to incorporate that!
Hello! My name is Claire and I am the Blog Administrator for Guest Bloggers. I grew up in Toronto, but have been spreading my roots in Ottawa for the past few years. I started my career as an ESL teacher last summer and am passionate about the variety of challenges and opportunities this field provides.	Claire Green
Jessica Freitag	Greetings! I’m Jessica and I’m the Blog Administrator for Occasional Bloggers. My interest in the English language brought me to TESL, and the warm learners and colleagues in this field have kept me in it for over a decade, where I now focus at the college level. I am happy to be part of the TESL Ontario Blog community and always learning from a variety of people sharing unique and interesting topics and ideas. Fun fact: I’ve never been able to swallow (soda) pop (but I can swallow beer).
Andrew Shedden	Hi! I’m Andrew Shedden. and I’m the IT Administrator & Social Media Lead for the TESL Ontario Blog. Like most people, I fell into ESL by accident. I was preparing to apply for my Master’s in history and decided I wanted to teach in Japan beforehand as a vacation. I got a CELTA degree so I would know what this teaching thing is all about, but one thing led to another and although I never actually made it to Japan as a teacher (or applied for a Master’s program), I’ve been teaching ESL ever since! For the past 10 years, I’ve been teaching EAP at various schools around Ontario. I love the focus on academic writing and reading, since I can vicariously go back to university through my students. (I do miss it!)  My other professional love is computers. I’ve been obsessed with them since I was 3, and I’m always trying to learn more about how to incorporate them into my classes.

This blog is a project of TESL Ontario.