Written by Reza Mazloom-Farzaghy, Accreditation Services Manager, TESL Ontario
Equipped with OCELT (Ontario Certified English Language Teacher) certification, job seekers have access to employment opportunities across a broad spectrum of teaching sectors in Ontario and beyond.
In my last blog, I wrote about the educational movements and how they have encouraged new methods of viewing teaching and learning. They have also made room for new forms of content delivery to be developed. One of the more recent developments in content delivery, which is becoming popular in language teaching, is Task-Based Language Teaching (TBLT), or “learning by doing.” Learning by doing can be defined as performing an action, i.e. enactment; in comparison, other ways of learning something are learning by viewing or learning by listening (Steffens et al., 2015). There is a general assumption that learning by doing creates better memories of an event or action, and so styles like TBLT are becoming more popular.
Teaching research writing and communication courses has been one of the best experiences I have had in my teaching career so far. One of the challenges, however, has been encouraging students to read articles before joining classes. These reading articles are a prerequisite for our students to complete a series of reflective reading and writing practices. Therefore, I have started taking advantage of TED Talks as a not so state-of-the-art, but practical resource for a college communication course. Here are a few ways I use this resource in my classes:
Educational digital accessibility is often viewed as a set of practices dedicated that assist disabled individuals with challenges to participate in online and blended courses. In fact, accessibility practices endeavor to more than eliminate barriers to education; they ensure that digital content is enhanced for everyone. Digital accessibility practices are something we all should practice because:
As the year 2021 wraps up, the Blog Admin Team want to wish everyone a restful holiday and the very best for the new year! We hope you enjoy our look back at some of our favourite blog posts from 2021.
Happy Holidays! Beth, Jessica, Claire, Elyse, Sarah, & Gordon
In this post Gonul offers some great ideas on how to get the most out of text readings in the classroom. Pre-reading activities and discussions are valuable ways to help students make sense of what they’re reading, grasp the core message of the text, and more easily draw on the information presented. The great thing about structured-experience techniques is that the students can be more hands-on in their efforts, while the teacher is there to provide guidance if needed.Continue reading →
Going back to class can be daunting. I feel sad to leave my online classroom and excited to interact with students in person.
I learned many lessons during this unprecedented coronavirus period. Returning to in-class teaching, I can reflect on my experience. Continue reading →
#CdnELTchat was happy to have Anna Bartosik (@ambartosik) share her expertise on Self-Directed Professional Development (SDPD) on June 1. Anna is an English language teacher at George Brown College, instructional designer, and PhD Candidate at OISE. Her research is in self-directed professional development in digital networks. Learn more by reading her blog: https://annabartosik.wordpress.com/.
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.
#CdnELTchat brings together #ELT enthusiasts to discuss topics of interest twice a month on Tuesday evenings at 6 PT / 9 ET. On March 30, we had a chat about “Teaching and Learning Vocabulary.”
Over the past two years, I have been attending a lot of webinars, presentations, conferences, dialogues and online courses. I’ve also been reading blogs and articles as well as doing presentations and writing blogposts. I’ve gained knowledge and collected remarkable resources. Tools like the ones below can help us design tasks that will engage and motivate our learners.