Articles about Teaching Canadian Culture
Teaching Canadian Culture: Teacher Preparation
What is Canadian culture? How do we prepare teachers to teach Canadian culture? How do we teach about culture in the classroom? After presenting a new vision ofCanadian culture that is to serve as a framework for deciding what to teach in the L2 classroom, I discuss three important pedagogical issues: (a) consciousness raising-making both teachers and students more aware of the origins and role of culture; (b) teacher preparation-how adequately to prepare teachers to teach Canadian culture in a multicultural classroom; and (c) tolerance and conflicting visions-how to strike a balance between the dominant cultural paradigm and the new cultural knowledge and experience that arrives with each new Canadian.
Responding to and expanding on Courchene's article on how Canadian culture might be taught as a subject in ESL curriculum, Sauve (1996) states, "Culture is not about content. It is about the making and remaking of relationships in our society" (p. 23). She discusses some of the pitfalls in trying to conceive of culture as content: the impossibility of representing the specificity of culture according to region, age, gender, ethnicity, class, race, rural versus urban locale, and work, to name some of the variables at play (p. 18), and the unavoidable flattening out of the discursive convergence of the psychic and the social at the heart of cultural practices, an erasure that tends to occur especially when cultural content is taught in the delivery mode.
Working With the Cultures of Canada in the ESL Classroom: A Response to Robert Courchene
There is a problem of naming"aCanadian culture." First of all, there is the old problem of discussing culture at all, which Edward Hall (1973) put so well for us. He describes three different layers of culture: primary, secondary, CIlnd tertiary. The first by definition resides in our unconscious where we cannot access it in order to discuss it; the second is reserved for discussion with fellow members of our culture; and the third is the set of customs, values, and so forth that we most commonly think of when we talk about culture. So how possible is it to teach something when we cannot even be fully conscious of it? I am comfortable with the notion of enabling the acquisition of culture; I am less comfortable with the idea of trying to teach it.
Good ESL teachers are patient at explaining things. Being comfortable with explaining content and context to students is an essential skill for teachers. Do you like to explain how things work, or how events occurred?
Good teachers have a sense of humor and use humor as part of their teaching methods. Humor, used properly, can be a powerful addition to any lesson. Can you integrate humour into lessons, explanations and stories to help your students learn?
Good teachers like people. ESL student's age ranges from elementary, special education, secondary education, higher education to adults and retirees. Good ESL teachers have a temperament for students in all age ranges.
Good teachers are inherently fair-minded. They assess students on the basis of performance, not on the students' personal qualities, background or culture. Can you measure students performance based on an evaluation criteria equally applied?
Good teachers have common sense. They can size up a situation quickly and make an appropriate decision. There is no substitute for common sense. Can you be fair and communicate your decisions clearly?
Good teachers have a complete understanding of the ESL content they teach in sufficient depth to convey the information in meaningful ways to the students. Are you able to re-present information from several perspectives to help students grasp concepts?
Good teachers set high expectations for their students and hold the students to those expectations. If you are thinking about becoming a teacher, can you set high expectations for yourself, and demand excellence not only of yourself, but your students as well?
Good teachers are detail oriented. Teachers must be organized in their professional and teaching duties. ESL teachers can not take things for granted. This applies to all organizational and instructional duties.
Good teachers are good managers of time. Time is one of the most precious resources a teacher has. Good teachers have learned to use this resource wisely. Can you monitor your time and allocate to priorities and deadlines?
Good teachers can lead or follow. ESL teachers have to shift from "sage on the stage to guide by the side". Sometimes, teachers must be members of teaching teams, committees, groups, councils, and task forces. It is important to have the temperament to function in these capacities. Are you comfortable being a leader or a follower as circumstances require? Can you be constructive with co-workers, team teachers, administrators, and parents?
Good teachers learn to improve their teaching by teaching, by making mistakes, learning from them and improving. Can you be a fair critic of yourself?
Good teachers know that they teach as much from their own actions and behavior as with the content they teach. Do a personal inventory of your own values, personality, preferences and goals. How has your past experience/education prepared you for teaching?
How can a teacher training program help you? The purpose of a teacher education program is to get you as ready as possible to teach ESL by introducing you to a variety of methods, techniques and experiences.
Original Post: Teachers in Canada Blog by ESLinCanada 2008-04-22T11:58:02
Grammar has long been regarded as the result of centuries of logical improvements in the systematic organization of language. Grammar has been held up as one of the defining criteria elevating mankind above mere animals.
Begun by well meaning researchers looking to improve mankind, Prescriptive Grammar and the rote drills to perfection became a practice to be ridiculed, ignored and then discarded.
In the 1920s and 1930s, two great promoters of the descriptive linguistics tradition, Edward Sapir and Leonard Bloomfield, both wrote influential books that elevated the primacy of speech over writing and the importance of a descriptive approach to language study.
The publication of Syntactic Structures in 1957 by Noam Chomsky of MIT began a revolution in linguistics. This began the on-going widespread belief that language acquisition is considered an autonomic process dependent upon unconscious interactions between an innate, internal language acquisition device and the quality of the raw input material of the child's linguistic environment.
Chomsky's "Naturalist Theory" core premise was that in order for children to be able to learn a spoken language with such rapidity and thoroughness, children must be born with large portions of the universal grammar of language already hardwired into their head.
By the 1980's these Naturalist theories and subsequent transformational-generative grammar additions gained momentum and pushed regulators, education faculties, teacher trainers, educators and textbook editors to eliminate traditional grammar instruction.
It is unfortunate that Chomsky was only right about initial language acquisition.
Babies are born with an excess of neural connections, many of which are lost through lack of use over time. Beginning at about the age of nine or ten and continuing until kids are around the age of fourteen, the internal mechanisms for intuiting syntactic, phonological, and morphological structures start breaking down.
Education theory promoters need to stop preaching the half-truth that grammar develops naturally through simple exposure to language. They need to admit that the internal language-learning mechanism is imperfect and that this ability degrades as students age.
It is interesting to note that some USA states have used 1930's Grade 6 English tests as a benchmark to show that most of the 1990's and 21st century first year college students could not even pass. Historical comparisons have revealed that education tests and standards have been deliberately reduced to disguise the failures of the "Modern public English education curriculum".
The second challenge is the elementary school students who had not formally learned English grammar are now teaching English. Many of these "modern English teachers" have never been exposed to the traditional grammar books of the 1940s and '50s, so when questioned cannot explain many of the rudimentary grammatical forms.
These facts should provide language program designers with clear road maps. Program designers have to recognize that they have a window of opportunity in which to expose students to syntactically rich language. Educators should prioritize technical grammar learning early and often.
Teachers must recognize that older students will not learn grammar simply by reading and writing. Teachers must correct grammatical errors that students have acquired during their early years. For older students language learning is not autonomous. Grammar structures and mechanics have to be explicitly taught.
Definition and Examples of Corpora in Linguistics
By Richard Nordquist Updated on February 12, 2020
In linguistics, a corpus is a collection of linguistic data (usually contained in a computer database) used for research, scholarship, and teaching. Also called a text corpus. Plural: corpora.
The first systematically organized computer corpus was the Brown University Standard Corpus of Present-Day American English (commonly known as the Brown Corpus), compiled in the 1960s by linguists Henry Kučera and W. Nelson Francis.
Notable English language corpora include the following:
The American National Corpus (ANC)
British National Corpus (BNC)
The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)
The International Corpus of English (ICE)
Advantages of Corpus Linguistics
"In 1992 [Jan Svartvik] presented the advantages of corpus linguistics in a preface to an influential collection of papers. His arguments are given here in abbreviated form:
- Corpus data are more objective than data based on introspection.
- Corpus data can easily be verified by other researchers and researchers can share the same data instead of always compiling their own.
- Corpus data are needed for studies of variation between dialects, registers and styles.
- Corpus data provide the frequency of occurrence of linguistic items.
- Corpus data do not only provide illustrative examples, but are a theoretical resource.
- Corpus data give essential information for a number of applied areas, like language teaching and language technology (machine translation, speech synthesis etc.).
- Corpora provide the possibility of total accountability of linguistic features--the analyst should account for everything in the data, not just selected features.
- Computerised corpora give researchers all over the world access to the data.
- Corpus data are ideal for non-native speakers of the language.
Additional Applications of Corpus-Based Research
The following practical applications may be mentioned.
Lexicography - Corpus-derived frequency lists and, more especially, concordances are establishing themselves as basic tools for the lexicographer. . . .
Language Teaching - The use of concordances as language-learning tools is currently a major interest
in computer-assisted language learning (CALL)
(Hans Lindquist, Corpus Linguistics and the Description of English. Edinburgh University Press, 2009)
Nordquist, Richard. "Definition and Examples of Corpora in Linguistics." ThoughtCo, Aug. 26, 2020, thoughtco.com/what-is-corpus-language-1689806.
I do not want my students thinking that knowledge is hidden or only passed on to a chosen few.
I do not want to produce co-dependent or charismatic personality followers out of my students.
I do not want my students running after me for years and years begging for "interpretations" or "patterns we use".
I share how to use skills, tools and methods.
I share what I know and where to find more.
I share how to apply, modify and invent.
Yes I teach logic, coping skills, reasoning, how to verify truth and detect manipulation.
Students learn how to use multiple reference sources to gain more accurate knowledge.
Students learn how context, situations, history, environment, audience and politics change perceptions.
Students learn to communicate with the core organization of language using grammar and vocabulary.
Students learn how to test, modify and improve their inputs, outputs and communications.
My students become confident then independent and go out on their own.
The ability to learn whatever you want, without chains holding you back is exhilarating.
Education is freedom
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Teach English Blog URL
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Please note we are post-lockdown 2023 and jobs are coming back slowly!!
Please check all positions/information that you are interested in:
I am interested in becoming a teacher and require career counselling.
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I have a website and need advertising to promote my teaching business.
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I would like to start or buy a school.
I am qualified for the following positions:
ESL Teacher
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Please copy the Teaching Registration Information and email to: eslincanada@gmail.com .
Thank you for your information - We will contact you soon - Have your resume, pictures, teaching portfolio ready.
English Literature Web Resources from Aurthur to Yeats are available. This is a partial list of internet teaching resources, sites, societies, ezines, forums, books, journals, videos, tapes, cds for English literature teachers to improve English literature study.
The National Archives of Canada and the National Library of Canada were drawn together by the Library and Archives of Canada Act to create a new knowledge institution for Canadians: Library and Archives Canada.
Link to Canada's Digital Collections
The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, represents writers, publishers and other creators for the administration of copyright in all provinces except Quebec. The purpose of the collective is to provide easy access to copyright material by negotiating comprehensive licences with user groups, such as schools, colleges, universities, governments, corporations, etc. permitting reproduction rights, such as photocopy rights, for the works in its repertoire.
Link to Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency
The Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks supports the use of national standards in English and French for describing, measuring and recognizing second language proficiency of adult immigrants and prospective immigrants for living and working in Canada.
Link to the Centre for Canadian Language Benchmarks
CIC Canada Immigration Centre screens and approves for admission, and issues visas to immigrants, foreign students, visitors and temporary workers who help Canada's social and economic growth.
Link to the Canada Immigration Centre
The Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers Offers direct support to second language teachers - Provides a professional networking community to second language educators - Presents a pan-Canadian view of second language education issues.
Link to the Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers
The ESL in Canada Directory lists ESL English as a second language schools, programs, classes and resources for new Canadians, visitors, international students to learn or study ESL in Canada.
Link to the ESL in Canada Blog
The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada is the voice of Canada's universities. The AUCC represents 95 Canadian public and private not-for-profit universities and university-degree level colleges.
Link to the AUCC homepage
The full text of The Canadian Encyclopedia and its related resources has been made available online by the Historica Foundation as a public service since 1999.
Link to the Canadian Encyclopedia homepage
The British Council with content and editorial support from the British Broadcasting Corporation both organisations receive funding from the UK government for their work in promoting English, supporting English language teaching (ELT) and providing information and access to ELT products, services and expertise from the UK. All teaching material on the site is free to access.
practical resources to use in your primary classroom
practical resources to use in your secondary classroom
practical resources to use in your adult and business classroom
OneLook Dictionaries is a compliation of 19,317,398 words in 1063 dictionaries.
Link to the OneLook online Dictionary
Dictionary.com provides free online access to millions of English definitions, synonyms, spelling, audio pronunciations, example sentences, and translations.
Link to the Dictionary.com online Dictionary
Thesaurus.com lists antonyms and synonyms
Link to the Thesaurus.com online reference
For more than 170 years, in print and now online the Merriam Webster Dictionary has been an American provider of American-English language information.
Link to the Merriam Webster online Dictionary
The Visual Dictionary is a completely free, online picture dictionary designed especially for ESL students and beginning English,
Link to the visual dictionary
The Guide to Grammar and Writing is sponsored by the Capital Community College Foundation, a nonprofit 501 c-3 organization that supports scholarships, faculty development, and curriculum innovation.
Link to the CCC Guide to Grammar and Writing
Since 1956 the International Reading Association has been a nonprofit, global network of individuals and institutions committed to worldwide literacy. More than 70,000 members strong, the Association supports literacy professionals through a wide range of resources, advocacy efforts, volunteerism, and professional development activities.
Link to the International Reading Association Home
Language and music are tied together in brain processing by pitch, rhythm and by symmetrical phrasing. Music can help familiarize students with connections and provides a fun way to acquire English." From Music and Language Learning by Bob Lake
Enhancing English acquisition through music
See Lexical similarities with Ethnologue: Languages of the World - An encyclopedic reference work cataloging all of the world's 6,909 known living languages.
Link to Ethnologue an encyclopedic reference
Includes TPR research articles and materials. TPR is based on the premise that the human brain has a biological program for acquiring any natural language on earth.
Link to TPR World
The Educator's Reference Desk provides high-quality resources and services to the education community. From the Information Institute of Syracuse, the people who created AskERIC, the Gateway to Educational Materials, and the Virtual Reference Desk, the Educator's Reference Desk brings 2,000+ lesson plans, 3,000+ links to online education information.
Link to The Educator's Reference Desk
Online Directory of ESL Resources by the The National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition and Language Instruction Educational Programs (NCELA) and the ERIC Clearinghouse on Languages and Linguistics, with funding from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement, and Academic Achievement for LEP Students (OELA), and Institute of Education Sciences (IES), have created this online directory of ESL resources.
Link to Online Directory of ESL Resources
TESL Articles 1995 to 2010 - The Internet TESL Journal's TESL/TEFL/TESOL/ESL/EFL/ESOL Links of Interest to Teachers and Students of English as a Second Language
Link to TESL Articles on Reading
The SentenceMaster English Grammar Writing Games provide a fun practical hands-on learning experience that will help students improve their English writing, practice their English grammar, vocabulary and language comprehension.
Link to SentenceMaster blog
FLTEACH Archives
Link to Archives - FLTEACH - The Foreign Language Teaching Forum
DIALANG is a major European Commission funded project aimed at providing effective diagnosis of language competence in 14 EU languages. It uses online tests, including placement and self- assessment tests, as key tools in this process.
Link to Dialang server at Lancaster University
The British Council Website includes links to news, learning English, teaching English, kids learning, and links to education resources.
Link to the home page for the British council
On March 29, Interim Registrar & CEO Chantal Bélisle, OCT and Membership Analyst Nancy Tran addressed the provincial government’s Standing Committee on Social Policy to share concerns regarding proposed amendments to the Fair Access to Regulated Professions and Compulsory Trades Act (FARPACTA).
The proposed changes would “establish tight and unyielding timelines in which regulators must respond to domestic labour mobility applicants for certification in Ontario.”
While the College supports expediency in licensing Canadian certified professionals moving to Ontario for work, we must also ensure that the process:
See the Ontario Teachers College’s written submission here.
Ontario College of Teachers
The Ontario College of Teachers, governs and enforces the standards of practice for the teaching profession.
The College:
Teachers in publicly funded schools must be members in good standing with the College. Many private schools also require their teachers to be College members.
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Shortage of Ontario Certified Teachers During Pandemic
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Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying wouldn’t confirm McIver had been detained, but said on Thursday that the Canadian had received an “administrative penalty (for) illegal employment.”
Hua added that McIver’s situation was different from the two other Canadian detainees. “The previous two have been put under compulsory measures by state security on suspicion of endangering China’s national security. This person was given administrative penalty,” she said.
Those detentions were seen by many as retaliation for Canada’s December 1 arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Chinese technology giant Huawei, at the request of the US over alleged violations of Iran sanctions.
There has been no official confirmation the detentions were linked to Meng’s case but the Chinese government has made clear its anger at her arrest, with numerous furious editorials in state-run media.
The world has definitely changed since September 11, 2001, the 2008 economic melt-down, the 2011 Arab Spring and 2016 election of Donald Trump. Refugees are swamping countries in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and even Canada.
Good News for ESL Teachers
Worldwide demand for ESL English education has increased by 10%.
Worldwide requests for overseas teachers up 300%.
China trained 1,000,000 for the 2008 Olympics and needs the same for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Read the updated 2022 News
https://teachenglishblog.blogspot.com/p/teaching-is-difficult.html
