Professional Development

EAL (ESL) Database

compiled by

Mary Sauder and Dr Sandra Kouritzin

Welcome to our EAL (ESL) Database. As part of a research grant, we have been conducting an Internet survey of school boards, non-governmental agencies and others involved in providing EAL (ESL) services to newcomer and Canadian children and youth.  The initial part of this project involved searching Internet sites to determine what programs and services were available.  Much of this data was collected during 2009.

After reviewing a number of sites we found many commonalities and used these to construct a template to compare the information we found.  We looked for information about who was eligible for programs, what kinds of services were offered, how long programs lasted, if policies for provincial education departments and school boards could be found and if non-governmental agencies were providing programs for children. While our project largely focuses on children and youth we included information from other populations, as we came across them, in order to understand as fully as possible how EAL services were provided  in Canada.  We have sorted this information by province.

While we tried to be accurate as possible, given that our searches were confined to the Internet and that some sites have been updated, added or withdrawn from the Internet since we began our work, we welcome any comments or corrections you would like to make. We are currently expanding our project to collect information more directly using an internet-posted questionnaire supported by Google Docs.  If you would like to contribute to this part of our project please contact us and we will forward the link to you.

Sandie Kouritzin & Mary Sauder

ESLpolicyquestionnaire@gmail.com