TESL NL would like to invite all TESL Canada members to a special presentation by Jennifer Walsh Marr, a PhD student and EAP lecturer, on ESL teaching in the context of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The presentation which will be free for all TESL Canada members will be taking place Wednesday, April 21 at 4PM on Google Meet. The link is here:

http://meet.google.com/xuy-szks-vjy

MOSAIC engage, one of the social enterprises of MOSAIC, is pleased to announce an exciting new teacher training program.

This one-month online certificate program is tailored to meet the learning needs of practicing ESL teachers and those starting out who are seeking specialized knowledge and professional certification in the area of IELTS preparation. IELTS testing is growing tremendously around the world and this course is a ticket to enter this dynamic teaching world.

The next course starts April 6.

TEACHING 101.2 - TEACHING FOR THE 21ST CENTURY SERIES

APPLYING THE “MULTIPLE LEARNING STYLES” METHOD IN THE ESL ADULT CLASSROOM (PART  & ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL TEACHING AND THE LEARNING STYLES (PART 2)

The learning styles idea introduced and proposed by a number of innovative and pioneering educational researchers in the 70s and 80s, caused uproar amongst the hardcore, “whip-on-the-desk” teachers who have been looking for ways to dismiss and disprove it ever since. Also proposed in the 80s, Howard

Gardner’s theory of Multiple Intelligences, challenged educators, curriculum developers and administrators to reflect on how our students learn, how much information is actually transferred from teachers to learners using classic teaching methods and ultimately, how much is actually retained by the learners after 12 years of formal education. Unfortunately, decades after these innovative teaching methods were first described, teacher training programs around the world continue to promote “one- size-fits-all” lesson planning.

In this two-part session, Maria will introduce you to the Multiple Intelligences (MI) and the Learning Styles (LS) theories through examples and hands-on activities. You will make the connection between the two theories and through self-assessment and self-reflection, you will identify which sets of MI and LS reflect your own learning and teaching preference. The second part of the session, will provide you with the necessary tools to plan for and put together your own lessons using a variety of teaching techniques that will engage your learners as a group, no matter what learning method they prefer.

DATES AVAILABLE:      APRIL 16 & 23 @ 1 PM MDT (FRIDAY)

MAY 19 & 26 @ 5 PM MDT (WEDNESDAY) REPEAT

This is a 2-part, 90-minute each, session. The regular fee is $75 (both parts); special fees are available for previous attendees, as well as for booking multiple sessions. Payment can be done by e-transfer or by credit card by sending an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. To register, please send an email at:

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.specifying the SESSION NAME and PREFERRED DATE in the subject line. Please note that THERE IS A LIMIT OF 15 PARTICIPANTS PER SESSION. For more information, feel free to contact Maria at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

USING THE “TEACHING MOMENT” IN LESSON PLANNING

Lesson planning is the most important step in providing meaningful teaching. Whether a seasoned teacher or a new kid on the block, planning is essential and it should go hand in hand with intuition, spontaneity and imagination, which make the complete toolkit for best teaching practices. On the other hand, a too detailed lesson plan can restrict our ability to cater to the needs of our learners as a group;

that is when a “teaching moment” could be perceived as a derailment from our plan and a breakdown in the lesson’s continuity. But, instead of looking at this interruption as a distraction, integrating it in our planning and using it as a teaching tool makes the lessons more varied and fun.

In this 90 minute session, Maria will demonstrate how the TEACHING MOMENT can actually be smartly and successfully INCLUDED in our lesson planning with great results for the learning process. She will show you how it can be made look like a natural occurrence in the middle of an ordinary lesson, at the same time giving credit to our learners for active participation and ultimately turning it into a fun learning experience for everybody.

DATES AVAILABLE:       APRIL 20 @ 5 PM MDT (TUESDAY)

MAY 18 @ 5 PM MDT (TUESDAY) REPEAT

This is a 90-minute session. The regular fee is $40; special fees are available for previous attendees, as well as for booking multiple sessions. Payment can be done by e-transfer or by credit card by sending an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. To register, please send an email at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.specifying the SESSION NAME and PREFERRED DATE in the subject line. Please note that THERE IS A LIMIT OF 15

PARTICIPANTS PER SESSION. For more information, feel free to contact Maria at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

GREAT MINDS THINK ALIKE – OR DO THEY?!

While nobody knows exactly where this “aphorism” comes from, today we use it in a self-deprecating, usually humorous way, when we realise that our “mind” has come to the same conclusion as our conversation partners. For educators, such declaration could describe two teaching methods that result in similar responses in our learners, as they acquire a similar piece of knowledge. But while the “minds” may think alike, many times, the path used to get to the same result is different. For instance, we may think that learning to spell correctly can only be done by incessant repetition, endless dictation or diction practice. The same result can also be achieved by reading extensively or by listening to audio books, while reading along. The scope of the activity is the same, but the path to achieve it is different.

In this 90 minute session, Maria will demonstrate different ways to teach the same topic, using different paths, with similar results. Taken from her extensive teaching career and the most recent studies in teaching methodology and pedagogy, she will address the question of teaching styles and learning styles and how we can adapt our teaching so that we address the individual needs of our learners, at the same time catering to the entire group.

DATES AVAILABLE:       APRIL 21 @ 5 PM MDT (WEDNESDAY)

JUNE 10 @ 5 PM MDT (THURSDAY) REPEAT

 This is a 90-minute session. The regular fee is $40; special fees are available for previous attendees, as well as for booking multiple sessions. Payment can be done by e-transfer or by credit card by sending an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. To register, please send an email at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.specifying the SESSION NAME and PREFERRED DATE in the subject line. Please note that THERE IS A LIMIT OF 15

PARTICIPANTS PER SESSION. For more information, feel free to contact Maria at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

“A MILE WIDE, AN INCH DEEP” – PREPARING TRUE REAL WORLD TASKS FOR THE ESL CLASSROOM

With the introduction of the PBLA for LINC programs in Canada and its implementation during the past several years, teachers have focused their lesson planning on finding those “Real World Tasks” to prepare our adult ESL learners for life after LINC. With the idea of the portfolio in mind and trying to scaffold the learning from easy to complex, teachers determine their learners’ progress or lack thereof using real world assessments. But, how many times did you “listen to a friend, colleague or classmate giving basic personal information about his/her life” or “listen to descriptions of various people to identify them in a photograph” in your everyday life? Copied “words from a picture dictionary into a guided text” or “emergency fire instructions posted in a building”?

In this 90 minute session, Maria will help you put together your own list of concrete, true “real world” activities, ready to use in your lessons and assessments, using examples from her 18 years of teaching in LINC programs and a 28-year long teaching career on two continents. THIS IS A SESSION ADDRESSING RWTS FOR CLBS 1 TO 4.

DATES AVAILABLE:       APRIL 27 @ 5 PM MDT (TUESDAY)

MAY 20 @ 5 PM MDT (THURSDAY) REPEAT

 This is a 90-minute session. The regular fee is $40; special fees are available for previous attendees, as well as for booking multiple sessions. Payment can be done by e-transfer or by credit card by sending an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. To register, please send an email at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.specifying the SESSION NAME and PREFERRED DATE in the subject line. Please note that THERE IS A LIMIT OF 15

PARTICIPANTS PER SESSION. For more information, feel free to contact Maria at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

TEACHERS ARE HUMAN AFTER ALL – HOW TO MAKE LEARNING MEANINGFUL BY SHARING PERSONAL STORIES

Building rapport with our learners is the key to a successful learning process in any educational situation or institution. Stepping down from the pedestal our learners like to place us on and showing them that “to err is to be human”, will not make us lose their respect; on the contrary. Showing our learners different ways to overcome the difficulties of learning English through examples taken from our own

“career” as lifelong learners will only empower them and encourage them to work harder.

In this 90 minutes session, Maria will share with you “stories from the ESL classroom” that demonstrate how using personal examples of trials and tribulations and success and failure, empower our learners but also create a relaxed, friendly and comfortable learning environment.

DATES AVAILABLE:       APRIL 29 @ 5 PM MDT (THURSDAY)

MAY 27 @ 5 PM MDT (THURSDAY) REPEAT

This is a 90-minute session. The regular fee is $40; special fees are available for previous attendees, as well as for booking multiple sessions. Payment can be done by e-transfer or by credit card by sending an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. To register, please send an email at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.specifying the SESSION NAME and PREFERRED DATE in the subject line. Please note that THERE IS A LIMIT OF 15

PARTICIPANTS PER SESSION. For more information, feel free to contact Maria at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

ASSESSMENT AND FEEDBACK - EMPOWERING OUR LEARNERS (OR HOW TO “PRODUCE” SUCCESSFUL LEARNERS)

When the time for assessment comes, we battle with a number of “big questions”: who are we writing the assessments for: the learner or their next teacher? Also, what do we want to share with the recipients of these assessments: progress, lack thereof or both? Do we want to empower them to continue to work hard or do we put them down so they give up? To a certain extent, teachers acknowledge that the difference between constructive/positive feedback and berating the work of a student is the difference between success and failure. Not only can we prove to our learners which skills they suck at, but we can also trick them and fail them by providing them with complicated and wordy questions so they cannot complete a simple task. But, does this constitute best teaching practices?

In this 90 minute session, Maria invites you to participate in an open and honest discussion about why too many teachers employ such tactics that are not only detrimental to our learners, but ultimately to all of us in the teaching profession. She will share different ways to give feedback for lack of progress by using encouragement and positive reinforcement and will demonstrate how easy it is to change the

“negative” into “positive” while being true to the scope of our job.

DATES AVAILABLE:       MAY 4 @ 5 PM MDT (TUESDAY)

MAY 11 @ 5 PM MDT (TUESDAY) REPEAT

This is a 90-minute session. The regular fee is $40; special fees are available for previous attendees, as well as for booking multiple sessions. Payment can be done by e-transfer or by credit card by sending an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. To register, please send an email at: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.specifying the SESSION NAME and PREFERRED DATE in the subject line. Please note that THERE IS A LIMIT OF 15

PARTICIPANTS PER SESSION. For more information, feel free to contact Maria at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

TEACHING STYLES AND LESSON PLANNING FOR THE ADULT ESL CLASSROOM (PART 1 & 2)

Teacher training programs more often than not, focus on providing their participants with a limited array of tools they can use to put together a lesson plan, find appropriate resources, create original

tasks or adapt assessments/tasks passed on from one “generation” to another. The practicum is also based on the one-size-fits-all lesson planning and the assumption that all teachers should teach the same way. What these programs do not take into account is how WE learn and, directly connected to this, how WE TEACH.

As they gain experience and become more confident, it is common for new teachers to discover that there are different ways to teach some contentious grammar point, include a speaking component in a reading task or prepare a fun vocabulary enrichment lesson, but for various reasons they prefer to go the beaten path and persevere in using the same teaching techniques whether they work or not.

In this 2-part session, Maria will help you identify your preferred teaching style and so, create lessons using the style that best matches your personality, without lowering or jeopardising the quality of your teaching. The first part will help you identify what your teaching style is and learn more about the different learning styles so that you can make an informed decision about what works for which task. The second part will provide you with the tools to put the “theory into practice”, by creating multi-style lessons that you are comfortable with and will also demonstrate how to collaborate with your peers and colleagues and organise the perfect “multiple-teaching-styles-common-activities”.

DATES AVAILABLE:       MAY 6 & 13 @ 5 PM (THURSDAY)

JUNE 11 & 18 @ 1 PM MDT (FRIDAY) REPEAT

This is a 2-part 90-minute each, session. The regular fee is $75 (both parts); special fees are available for previous attendees, as well as for booking multiple sessions. Payment can be done by e-transfer or by credit card by sending an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. To register, please send an email at:

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.specifying the SESSION NAME and PREFERRED DATE in the subject line. Please note that THERE IS A LIMIT OF 15 PARTICIPANTS PER SESSION. For more information, feel free to contact

Maria at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

THE “TALL POPPY SYNDROME” SERIES

THE “TALL POPPY SYNDROME” AND THE MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES THEORY (PART 1) & THE “TALL POPPY SYNDROME” AND THE LEARNING STYLES (PART 2)

“If relativity is proved right, the Germans will call me a German, the Swiss will call me a Swiss citizen, and the French will call me a great scientist. If relativity is proved wrong, the French will call me a Swiss, the Swiss will call me a German, and the Germans will call me a Jew.” A powerful Albert Einstein quote as he was introducing his relativity theory to the scientific community and that hinted at his success perceived from the perspective of his heritage and nationality and not his true scientific ability.

Unfortunately, more than a century later, the attitude regarding people with above average qualities or higher native intelligence is still the same. More than that, this attitude has bled into the way learners are assessed and in the way educational systems perceive “gifted” learners. It is not uncommon to see that in the 21^st century classrooms, learners that are “different”, are swiftly labeled as such and special learning plans are quickly put together to help them “cope” with the requirements of the mainstream educational system. They are referred to “gifted” programs that “cater” to their “special needs” and ultimately, they end up being separated from the mainstream learning system. This is happening in the public education systems, as well as in adult education programs.

In this two part session, Maria will help you rediscover how to engage such learners and include them in the learning process and at the same time use their extraordinary abilities for the benefit of all of your learners. Based on research done by pioneers in the instructional and educational fields like Maria Montessori, John Dewey, David Kolb, Neil Fleming and Howard Gardner, who have introduced new ideas of teaching still relentlessly contested by those who support the “tall poppy” perspective, you will learn that the “tall poppy syndrome” is not some herbal illness but an ignorant and destructive way of leveling us up, placing us in Procustes’ bed to make us all uniform and consequently mediocre. Using the 8 emotional intelligences and making the connection to the 8 learning styles, Maria will demonstrate how we can prepare extraordinary lessons, inclusive and geared toward our “gifted” learners, so they too feel a part of the group.

DATES AVAILABLE:       MAY 7 & 14 @1 PM MDT (FRIDAY)

JUNE 9 & 15 @ 5 PM MDT (WEDNESDAY) REPEAT

This is a 2-part 90-minute each, session. The regular fee is $75 (both parts); special fees are available for previous attendees, as well as for booking multiple sessions. Payment can be done by e-transfer or by credit card by sending an email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. To register, please send an email at:

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.specifying the SESSION NAME and PREFERRED DATE in the subject line. Please note that THERE IS A LIMIT OF 15 PARTICIPANTS PER SESSION. For more information, feel free to contact Maria at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..