Teacher Discussion Forums

Unless there’s a special activity it’s really hard to get parent to participate, as English is not perceived as one of the important school subjects (here in Quebec). Often parents concentrate their efforts on “main subjects” and neglect English. Unless there’s a special event or class activity, par...

Digital texts are great, but we have to keep in mind that on the internet, authorship is not something that seems to be respected. Plagiarism plagues many online resources. It’s not something we have to deal with when we rely on regular school books. We have to be really careful about this phenomeno...

It’s really hard to motivate teenagers in an ESL class, as it requires from minimal culture awareness. Teenagers are often self-centered and the challenge for me is to help them shift their focus from personal lives towards something else. In class, during personal activities, I like to sit with eac...

Intensive learning is good, but I think there’s nothing like a real English immersion program or even simply studying abroad. Learning language at school will always remain sort of “faked” as it only provides students with predictable learning situations under controlled circumstances. There are obv...

The problem here is complex. We all know how deeply rooted in culture is language. In Quebec, there’s a certain ideological assumption according to which cultural assimilation would result from bilingual education and that, in the end, French itself would we be at stakes. The problem is real and the...