Category Archives: culture

What Toddlers Have Taught Me About Effective Language Learning 


Written by - Bei Zhang
Panoramic of Asian Toddler portrait put her chin and smiling over her hands on stack of books, Concept little bookworms joy learning to be intelligent kids, Adorable child reading book for preschool.
image source bigstockphoto.com

In my CLB 2-3 language class, I’m often reminded of toddlers learning their first words. My students, much like young children, are navigating a world of new sounds, gestures, and social interactions—sometimes with adorably direct, and occasionally awkward, bluntness. Take how they ask for help, for example. “REPEAT!” they say when it’s the only word they can think of to get help as quickly as possible. It reminds me of a toddler demanding attention, lacking the nuanced communication skills we often take for granted.   Continue reading →

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Mitigating the Effects of Trauma


Written by - Jennifer Hutchison
Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash

“Two of my brothers were killed in the war in Ukraine.”

“My family’s houses were destroyed in Palestine”

“I have PTSD from a trauma in my homeland.”

“There is fighting in my street back home, and I can’t reach anyone.”

“My mother was sent to a re-education centre for being a Uyghur.”

“My husband and I and our two sons were put on a kill list, so we had to flee my country.”

“My sister is sick, and I cannot go back and see her before she dies.”

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The Power of Storytelling


Written by - Jennifer Hutchison
Photo by NiseriN http://www.photocreo.com/

Everyone loves a good story. For generations, people of all ages and backgrounds have entertained one other with their exploits and adventures, sometimes fanciful, sometimes not. Stories can be told over dinner, sung in a song, enacted on stage, painted on canvas, or printed in a book. They can be long, short, sad, uplifting, serious or funny. You don’t need much to create a story, other than a couple of ideas and a voice or pen and paper. And yet, for such a simple tool, its benefits are prolific.

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AI in the Classroom: The New, New Normal?


Written by - John Allan @mrpottz

In December of 2022, Cecilia Aponte-de-Hanna brought the discussion of artificial intelligence or “AI” to the TESL Ontario community with her post, AI in the Classroom: Love It or Hate It – It’s Here. Cecilia piqued our curiosity by showing us an example of a test text generation and suggested three ways that she was considering using AI with her lessons.   

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Discussing the holiday season with students


Written by - Sarah Martinez
Source: Provincial Archives of Alberta

When I look around my classroom, I see a mix of ethnicities from around the world. Each student has their own cultural traditions and special holidays, but they may also be curious to learn about some of the traditions we celebrate in Canada during the holiday season.

In Canada we celebrate several important holidays at the end of the year, including Christmas, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Diwali, Oktoberfest, Día de los Muertos, and Yee Peng. These are a few of the more commonly observed celebrations, however there are many more. Whatever the ‘reason for the season’, I try to be inclusive and recognize the diversity of our year-end celebrations when discussing the holiday season with students.

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Promoting Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Class through Critical Texts, Talks, and Tasks


Written by - Guest Contributor

I asked TESL Ontario educators to record their thoughts on the question “What are one or two ways that you incorporate diversity, equity, and inclusion in your teaching practice?” This post shares their recordings (see link below) and synthesizes their responses, which highlight the importance of infusing criticality in classroom texts, talks, and tasks. 

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Language Never Stops


Written by - Bei Zhang
Image source: www.bigstockphoto.com

Is it possible for a language to become outdated? Daniel Tammet (2018) answered this question in Every Word Is A Bird: “Language never stops.” “Language evolves over time to reflect the way understanding and beliefs change” (Lellman, 2021). Some expressions that were common a few years ago might not be so common now. This has made choosing good materials more challenging when it comes to real-world language learning.

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#CdnELTchat and #teslONchat Summary with Guest moderator JPB Gerald: Decentring Whiteness in #ELT


Written by - Guest Contributor
Decentring Whiteness in #ELT Guest Moderator, JPB Gerald
Image Source: #CdnELTChat Team

Post by Tanya Cowie, Jennifer Chow and Bonnie Nicholas

On May 11, the #CdnELTchat team, along with #teslONchat, welcomed JPB Gerald (@JPBGerald) as our special guest moderator for a live chat on the topic of Decentring Whiteness in #ELT. JPB Gerald is a doctoral candidate in Instructional Leadership. His scholarship focuses on language teaching, racism, and whiteness. Learn more at jpbgerald.com or by listening to the podcast, UnstandardizedE. We can also recommend his article in the BC Teal Journal, Worth the Risk: Decentring Whiteness in English Language Teaching, as well as his most recent co-authored piece (with @ScottStillar and @Vijay_Ramjattan) in Language Magazine, After Whiteness.

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#CdnELTchat Summary for April 27, 2021 Building Community in Online Classes


Written by - Guest Contributor
Image Source: #CdnELTChat Team
Image Source: #CdnELTChat Team

Post by Bonnie Nicholas

As we continue with online teaching and learning, I think all of us have discovered the importance of building community in the online spaces in which we spend so much time. I suspect that we have all also discovered that it’s more challenging to build a community in an online environment than in a face-to-face class. #CdnELTchat hosted a Twitter chat to talk about this ongoing challenge.

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Summary of the #teslONchat on Workplace English with Patrick Chan


Written by - teslontario
Image Source: teslontario

Post by: Patrick Chan and Vanessa Nino

On March 26, 2021 we discussed Workplace English on Twitter. The guest moderator of the evening was Patrick Chan (@patchantweets). Patrick Chan currently serves as the Social Content Committee Chair for TESL Ontario. He is also Technological Lead in TESL Ontario’s Conference Committee and the current president of TESL Ottawa. In addition to these roles, he is a LINC instructor in Ottawa. Along with his Ontario Certified English Language Teacher (OCELT) designation, he is an Ontario Certified Teacher. He has taught Workplace English for many years.

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