Register now for the TESL Toronto’s Spring Conference! The Friday special event has sold out, but there are still seats available for Saturday May 25!
Also new this year: you don’t need to choose your Saturday workshops before registering. Just register and pay to reserve your place. Then when you show up on Saturday, sign in at the registration desk, and proceed to whichever workshops strike your fancy. We’ve booked extra large rooms for all the Saturday workshops, so seating limits will not be a problem.
For more information on workshops, presenters, and other event details
To register, click here. (Have your credit card ready).
See you soon!
Tyson invites you to know a little bit about the background of this year’s Spring Conference and dares you not to be excited about it! Are you ready??
There has never been a more exciting time to be an ESL/EFL teacher. Technology is becoming more accessible and free, teaching resources abound, and there continues to be incredibly strong demand for learning English – a British Council report estimates that 2 billion people will be English speakers by 2016.
Take advantage of this exciting time by building your own personal brand with your students, colleagues, and future employers. You don’t need to have your own web team, but it will become increasingly important to take control of your professional path. Plus, students need your curation skills now more than ever – with so many free materials, what can they trust? That’s where your English teaching expertise comes in. Online is a different form factor, but just like learning how to lead in a classroom, start testing the online world and you’ll notice it’s not that different than in-person interactions.
How to Building Your Personal Brand:
From LinkedIn profiles, Google + pages, to blogs and full out personal websites – the online world is tailored to help you showcase your skills and expertise. Teaching, unlike most professions is hard to describe – how would you showcase your teaching skills? Can you describe them in words? Wouldn’t it be great if you can showcase how you actually teach in video and show how great of a teacher you are? WeblishPal teacher profiles were built for that – it helps you showcase materials and your expertise in one convenient place, best of all they are free to create.
Using Blended Learning Online & In the Classroom:
Blended learning brings the world into the classroom and the classroom out to the world. The K-12 system has been enriched by resources like the Khan Academy video lessons. Yet the ESL content world is still dispersed and uncharted. Why not build your own online course pages and share your materials with students? Teachers we’ve interviewed have used everything from hip hop to film to create fun lessons for students – lessons they bring into the classroom and even assign as homework for students to enjoy on their own time. Remember, your students are already looking for resources on the web – be there to guide them.
The joy of teaching is the ability to constantly share knowledge – do yourself and your students a favour and share your creative teaching and curating skills online as well as the classroom. At WeblishPal we love working with ESL teachers to help them build easy to share and FREE online portfolios. We’ll be exhibiting at TESL, so do drop by for a demo to get you up and running online. If you can’t make it, we recently had a free webinar on getting started with online teaching, portfolios, and blended learning.
See you at TESL Toronto!
Barbara Tassa – Co-Founder, WeblishPal.com
Click here to view the webinar recording.
Dr. Agnieszka Palalas will present her favourite mobile apps that can be used for teaching and learning English as a Second Language. She will explain how these ubiquitous tools can be used to augment in-class activities and encourage out-of-class language practice. Examples of free mobile apps supporting the development of all four language skills will be presented. Agnieszka will also discuss the who, when and how of the apps, and their suitability for both individual and collaborative language–learning activities. This hour-long webinar comprises an introduction to the selected mobile apps, discussion of their usage, and 15 minutes of Q&A.
Audience: While this presentation targets ESL professionals with very basic understanding of mobile technologies, it also offers ideas and tips to a broader TESL audience.
The Presenter: Dr. Agnieszka Palalas is a Mobile Learning Specialist at George Brown College, Toronto, Canada, where she has led numerous m-learning initiatives and research projects targeting international and immigrant students’ needs. She works with
learners and faculty to integrate innovative pedagogies and technologies in mobile and blended learning contexts, including Mobile-Assisted Language Learning contexts. Her other instructional design and research interests focus on emerging approaches to teaching and learning, as well as formal and informal learning practice using innovative technologies. Agnieszka is active in local and international mobile learning and second language learning associations and is a regular presenter at professional conferences. Agnieszka has published several articles pertaining to mobile learning and Mobile-Assisted Language Learning. In her work, Agnieszka has combined her expertise of instructional design and computer technologies with over 20 years of experience as a teacher and ESL instructor.
Thank you to everyone who joined in our very first TESL Toronto webinar, Aga Palalas’ “My Favourite Mobile Apps” on May 6. Aga led 30 participants in an exploration of mobile apps for creating surveys, listening, speaking, collaborative writing, vocabulary acquisition, and more.
The webinar was recorded and will be available soon here on the TESL Toronto website. Check back soon for the link.
TESL Toronto Presentation by Svetlana Lupasco, May 25th, 2013
Short bio: I have been teaching adult ESL for 9+years. 3 years ago I started working with ESL Literacy and fell in love with it. I am a TESL Ontario Accredited Language Instructor and Teacher Trainer. I have been mentoring TESL students from different programs for the last 3 years.
What do you usually do in the computer lab with the ESL Literacy students? Work on a Word document? Watch a video on YouTube? Play a game on a favourite website? How about setting up a course which is filled with your students’ favourite activities that reinforce the classroom curriculum? How about having everything you need in one single place? Sounds good to me!
Three years ago something wonderful happened: by a stroke of luck I nailed a job as an ESL literacy teacher. Although the computer lab seemed to be a challenge in the beginning, it turned out to be a fantastic opportunity to grow as a teacher and explore the wonderland of the educational technology.
As a part of my Post TESL training, I have been creating a blended online course for my ESL literacy learners using a Moodle platform. It started with the idea to set up a course to support the activities we did in the classroom but in an online format. Along the way, I discovered different ways to transform the classroom curriculum into student- and teacher- friendly online resources which can be easily modified, updated and adapted to the needs of the students. I have been building the course gradually by closely observing my students working on it and testing out the activities.
During my presentation at TESL Toronto, I’d like to share my experience as an ESL Literacy teacher developing and working with a blended online course. As a result of my computer lab experiment, I was able to see which of the activities were more successful with the students and I followed my students’ requests and recommendations. At the moment I am still in the process of refining and modifying the content of the course but I hope that by September it be available on Tutela.
Hope to see you at TESL Toronto on May 25th!
Warm regards, Svetlana
Founded in 1976, TESL Toronto is a volunteer-run, non-profit organization representing educators and specialists in the fields of English as a Second Language (ESL) and English as a Foreign Language (EFL).
Our Mandate is
• to support professional development for teachers of English as a Second Language in Toronto, and
• to work with other regional affiliates and TESL Ontario to enhance ESL learning environments, and
• to establish and promote standards in ESL education.
The Executive Board of TESL Toronto is made up of members in good standing of TESL Ontario who volunteer their time and energy. TESL Toronto is currently accepting applications for new members of our Executive Board. More...
We represent approximately 1,500 members. Our members are mainly ESL instructors, though anyone with an interest in the field can join. More...
Conference inquiries
conference@tesltoronto.org
All other inquiries
info@tesltoronto.org
