By Christine Smart-Wiseman I have spent over a decade developing my research in community-setting adult ESL classes. I have found the path to empowerment for newcomers somewhat difficult. Students face many obstacles, including discrimination, racism, and the increasing challenges of settling into a country where English is not their first language. I have also realized ..read more

Inclusive education means that all children have access to learning regardless of their social background, economic status, physical abilities or any trait which may potentially hinder them from their right to education. While this is a recent phenomenon influenced by Montessori methods and research on learner-centered classrooms, the shift actually has roots that go back ..read more

Image source: www.bigstockphoto.com I had planned on giving one of my classes a task every Friday. What’s that saying? Ah, yes. Even the best laid plans. . . My plan was running like a well-oiled machine until the final week of classes before the Christmas break. I’d scheduled a writing task on December 15, and the class did it. That was not the problem. Time was. I didn’t have enough of it to cover all the material, and so I decided to teach to the test, or task, as it were. I don’t like teaching to the test. It has its place in a class, but are we teaching students to pass exams or to ..read more

image source: Flickr-Venspired As an ESL teacher with over a decade of progressive teaching experience, no notion in English language pedagogy was as mind–blowing to me as the idea of learner autonomy. The way that learning and learners are seen as autonomous has always resonated highly with me; I always thought if anyone masters independent learning, they can learn almost anything with joy and efficiency. Recently, however, I’ve been thinking differently about this. Not because I am now a skeptic of this approach, but because I have been wondering if all learners want to be independent learne ..read more

 Image source: www.bigstockphoto.com I know the orthodoxy of education is for lessons to be student centred. But I’m going to risk excommunication here by suggesting that there are times when it’s absolutely essential that classes be teacher centred. Literacy classes are such instances. To go against one’s training and instincts by shifting focus to oneself (the teacher) is one of the many challenges of teaching a literacy class. It doesn’t take long, however, to see that the lower the level of a student’s English, the more guidance, scaffolding, and support they need from their teac ..read more

Image source: www.bigstockphoto.com Learning never stops; this now includes both humans and Artificial Intelligence. As I type this blog post, I find myself either tabbing to accept the suggested word or ignoring the suggestion. Being prompted to type what auto-text thinks I should be writing can be annoying and, if I am not careful, I end up writing a word that I did not mean to write or, worse yet, pressing ‘send’ on a message or email with one or two unintended words. Although I appreciate its usefulness on some occasions, it irks me when I am given the wrong suggestion, as in the case of G ..read more

Image source: www.bigstockphoto.com Tseng Tzu said, “Every day I examine myself on three counts. In what I have undertaken on another’s behalf, have I failed to do my best? In my dealings with my friends have I failed to be trustworthy in what I say? Have I passed on to others anything that I have not tried out myself? (as cited in Confucius & Waley, 1938). Self-reflection is an approach that allows you to have an opportunity to examine what you have done and what you can learn from your past. However, it is never an easy thing to do, as we are living in a fast-paced world full of “smart ..read more

Image source: www.bigstockphoto.com Guest Contributor: Christine Smart-Wiseman Like many others in the field, I am always looking for new ways to improve my teaching. My research as a PhD student at York University led me to examine teaching from a critical pedagogical approach. The guiding principle of this approach is to construct equitable and democratic classrooms with a goal to positively transform students’ lives (Canagarajah, 2005). While I was doing my research in an ELL classroom, I uncovered many ways in which ELL environments contradict the goals of critical pedagogical approac ..read more

Image taken from: BigStockPhoto Schools were first developed not as a past-time, but as a way to elevate the rich and then as a way to educate the masses before they entered the workforce. One of the most basic reasons for this was the need for a literate workforce. Literacy and mathematics have been at the core of global educational systems for hundreds of years, and maybe not surprisingly, these subjects are still there. Standard Education There have been four major movements in North American education, each of which represented a different way of viewing teaching and learning according to ..read more

Image taken from: http://schoology.com/blog/samr-model-practical-guide-edtech-integration Have you been asking yourself what technologies you could- or should- use to deliver your online courses? Maybe you’re looking for some guidance as to what to use and when. Online teaching challenges us to try a lot of new things, but we don’t have to imagine what functions well and when on our own. Instead, we can refer to the technology and learning pedagogy models which are out there to assist us in making informed decisions about technology in our lessons. Puentedura’s SAMR model is used to describe ..read more