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Dear LINC/CLIC Stakeholder,
We all hope we are emerging from the pandemic. During the past two years your programs have had to rapidly implement new technology solutions to address the need for online and remote learning. Your educators now have an expanded technology toolbox. What does the new normal look like? Blended, face-to-face, or online? We are eager to know and we value your feedback.
Our short survey should not take more than 5-10 minutes. Results will be shared in a public report later in the spring. Thank you for completing it by Friday, April 8th.
https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/newnormal-avenue
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Project News
Part 1 Learning Technology Leadership
A new intake of this six-week course begins on April 16. More information is available here.
http://learnit2teach.ca/wpnew/new-part-1-learning-technology-leadership-group-begins-saturday-february-26/
TESL Basics for Language Volunteers
Does Your Agency Manage TESL Volunteers in the Classroom or the Community? ... At New Language Solutions we recognize volunteers can be an important part of settlement language training. TESL Basics for Language Volunteers (TBLV) is an online course funded by IRCC. TBLV was developed to offer basic TESL training and orientation for volunteers working with newcomers ...
http://learnit2teach.ca/wpnew/tesl-basics-for-language-volunteers/
The benefits of LINC blended learning #7. Our featured video for March is, “It Expands Access to Information for Learners and Teachers”
In 2017-18 an Avenue-LearnIT2teach Project evaluation team undertook a demonstration research project at a LINC program in Burnaby B.C. They looked into the impacts of blended learning. The report was released in 2019. The researchers identified multiple benefits of LINC blended learning. We’ve distilled the results into nine videos ... Each month, we’re focusing on one of those videos and the learner, teacher and program benefits it describes. This month we’re looking at video number 7 "It Expands Access to Information for Learners and Teachers."
http://learnit2teach.ca/wpnew/what-are-the-benefits-of-linc-blended-learning-watch-these-videos-for-an-explanation/
New PBLA-compatible Units (CLB 5+)
New CLB 5+ PBLA-compatible units from the Toronto Catholic District School Board to develop reading and note-taking skills will be available next month. An announcement will be posted in the Avenue teacher's forum and at learnit2teach.ca when these are available.
Web News
UNESCO Sees Role of EdTech in Multilingual Learning
... According to a statement released by UNESCO, “Technology has the potential to address some of the greatest challenges in education today. It can accelerate efforts towards ensuring equitable and inclusive lifelong learning opportunities for all if it is guided by the core principles of inclusion and equity. Multilingual education based on mother tongue is a key component of inclusion in education." ...
https://www.languagemagazine.com/2022/03/23/unesco-sees-role-of-edtech-in-multilingual-learning/
She’s trilingual, has a PhD and loads of work experience. So why was getting a job in Canada an ordeal?
Many immigrant women are downplaying their credentials, truncating their names, altering accents or changing their appearance to try to ‘fit’ perceived cultural expectations of employers, a new study says ...
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2022/03/30/shes-trilingual-has-a-phd-and-work-experience-but-getting-a-job-in-canada-was-an-ordeal-whats-wrong-with-this-picture.html
Listen Without Guilt: Audiobooks Offer Similar Comprehension As Reading
... A new meta-analysis looking at reading vs. listening to text either via an audiobook or other method has found no significant difference in comprehension outcomes. The study was recently published in Review of Educational Research and provides some of the best evidence yet that those who listen to a text learn a comparable amount to those who read the same text. ...
https://www.techlearning.com/news/listen-without-guilt-audiobooks-offer-similar-comprehension-as-reading
Artificial intelligence can identify students who need extra help
A pilot study of the use of artificial intelligence to detect the needs of students in remote learning has concluded that the data obtained can be used by teachers to offer help to the students who most need it. The research ... will help solve one of the biggest problems faced by off-site education, which has become more widespread during the pandemic ... Furthermore, artificial intelligence and its predictions can also help detect possible fraud or plagiarism. ...
https://phys.org/news/2022-03-artificial-intelligence-students-extra.html
Making privacy protection a basic skill for students
A new graphic novel joins OPC resources, giving teachers a jump on privacy lessons ... The Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada has developed a new graphic novel aimed at children aged 8-10 to add to its suite of tools to help teachers support children in learning how to navigate privacy issues in the online world....
https://www.priv.gc.ca/en/blog/20220303/
How Vietnamese refugees inspired the creation of Saskatoon's Open Door Society
As present-day Saskatoon welcomes refugees from Afghanistan, the StarPhoenix looks back at how Vietnamese refugees inspired the creation of SODS four decades ago. ...
https://thestarphoenix.com/news/local-news/saskatoon-open-door-society-historic-feature-on-refugees-from-vietnam
Blogs
12 English Teaching Resources to Tune Up Your Classroom in 2022
When I first started teaching English, one of my deepest concerns was that I’d run out of materials mid-class! ... In reality, the circumstance is far different. The problem English teachers face today isn’t a lack of resources but rather an abundance of them. ... ...
https://www.fluentu.com/blog/educator-english/english-teaching-resources/
Education technology post-COVID-19: A missed opportunity?
While technology has transformed most industries—from air travel, to finance, to health care—it has yet to do the same in education. Before COVID-19, most school systems across the world did not look strikingly different from how they did in the 20th or even 19th centuries. And investments in ed tech had mostly focused on deploying devices and connectivity, without much regard to their use by teachers and students for learning. Thus, it is not surprising that impact evaluations of investments—for example, the “ one laptop per child at home” study in Peru—found no impact on student learning. ...
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/education-plus-development/2022/03/11/education-technology-post-covid-19-a-missed-opportunity/
3 tools to support trauma-informed teaching
Trauma-informed teaching is likely to be an essential skill for teachers after students have returned to full-time in-person learning ... and this article suggests ways edtech can help.
https://www.eschoolnews.com/2022/02/23/3-tools-to-support-trauma-informed-teaching/
Online Quizzes Are Now Wildly Popular With Teachers
... more than two-thirds of educators say their use of technology has “increased a lot” since the start of the pandemic, according to a survey of 888 teachers, principals, and district leaders ... Online quizzes have become an especially popular tool, with 69 percent of educators surveyed saying they—or the teachers in their school or district—use them almost daily. Online quizzes are especially helpful because they usually don’t “eat up class time,”...
https://www.edweek.org/technology/online-quizzes-are-now-wildly-popular-with-teachers-see-how-other-digital-tools-stack-up/2022/03
TESOL basics: What is task-based learning and how can it help learners?
... The idea of using tasks which do not focus specifically on sentence translation or grammar exercises was not suggested until the late 1980s. Until then, students of other languages would typically work alone on copying, transforming and completing sets of words and sentences on paper. By contrast, a communicative language task will encourage learners to do something with the language that they are learning ...
https://www.languagepointtraining.com/post/tesol-basics-what-is-task-based-learning-and-how-can-it-help-learners
What is quality online learning versus remote emergency instruction?
... There has been some stigma about online learning as being lower quality than face-to-face learning, despite research showing otherwise. It is conceivable that hurried moves transferring face-to-face delivery to an online format in the early months of the pandemic may have contributed to this perception. While emergency moves online served the purpose of providing continuation of learning, it could not, and cannot, take full advantage of the possibilities of the online format and inspiring instructional design.
https://moodle.com/news/quality-online-learning-vs-remote-emergency-instruction/
Professional Development
New in the Annotated Bibliography: “Google and me together can read anything.” Online reading strategies to build independent readers in the ESL classroom.
This article provides a compelling argument for the use of online texts in the ESL reading classroom to help students to develop their overall reading comprehension skills, to support the development of information literacy skills and lifelong reading habits for students.
http://bib.learnit2teach.ca/blog/planned-online-language-education-versus-crisis-prompted-online-language-teaching-lessons-for-the-future/
Learning technology in LINC – Beyond the pandemic
This article is based on observations from a workshop conducted at the 2021 annual TESL Ontario conference .... The onset of COVID-19 in March 2020 was a crisis in immigrant settlement language training. Many teachers and learners were forced to rapidly pivot from conventional face-to-face learning to remote learning. Teachers and learners who had previously practiced blended (or hybrid) learning were well positioned with technology and skills. Teachers and learners who had not were forced to rapidly respond with Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT). ...
http://contact.teslontario.org/learning-technology-in-linc-beyond-the-pandemic/
eLearning Toolkit
... The eLearning Toolkit is a collection of resources and information [from Bow Valley College] to help language teachers develop methods, strategies, and a mindset for using online and digital technology. It includes useable resources and information for generating ideas and strategies related to online ELL. ...
https://globalaccess.bowvalleycollege.ca/elearningtoolkit/
Jobs
Online English Teacher
A qualified and experienced TEFL teacher needed to teach online to University of Guadalajara students. The applicant will become part of a dedicated team of teachers, will receive constant support and have the opportunity to attend training workshops. ....
https://careers.tesol.org/job/48115/online-english-teacher/
Online English Teacher
Tiptop ESL Ltd is delighted to bring you the opportunity to teach online with Whales English. Their main focus is to teach Chinese students aged between 5 to 18. ....
https://careers.tesol.org/job/48977/teach-online-with-whales-english-work-from-home-/
e-Resource Corner
DeepL Translator
DeepL is one of the best AI translators available.
https://www.deepl.com/en/translator
10 Quick Tips to Improve Your English Speaking Score
This video shares advice for how to improve your English speaking score on all English proficiency tests. English speaking is a vital skill nowadays. If you would like to improve your English speaking quickly, follow the advice in this tutorial. We cover the best tips for rapid improvement.
https://youtu.be/OiBiy2RLkjs
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New Language Solutions is based in Ottawa, Ontario. We acknowledge that our head office is on the traditional, unceded territory of the Algonquin Anishnaabeg People. Beyond Ottawa, we have staff working in locations across Canada. New Language Solutions is grateful to have the opportunity to work as a guest in communities and territories across the country, and we honour the stewardship of the many Indigenous peoples who have resided on and cared for these lands since time immemorial.
We make our acknowledgement as a sign of respect for all Indigenous Peoples of Turtle Island, past and present. We accept the true impact of the past and the pain suffered by generations of Indigenous Peoples. As an agency that works to support the integration of newcomers into Canadian society and cultures, we express our commitment to support activities that are inclusive of Indigenous Peoples. We resolve to address a history of injustice to First Nations, Metis and Inuit peoples.
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