On Saturday, April 28th, 21 people from 5 churches got together to share our ideas, questions and enthusiasm concerning ESL ministries. This mini-conference was hosted by High Park Baptist and attended by representatives from Knox Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Fellowship Chapel, Oasis Dufferin, and St. Paul’s Anglican Church.
We began our day by getting to know one another through a common ESL classroom exercise. After a time of worship we divided into small groups to discuss the different features of our various programs and to share successes and problems. This discussion was shaped by the following sentence completions:
- Our ministry serves God by..
- Our ministry serves our neighbours by …
- Our students really enjoy …
- Some challenging aspects of volunteering in this are..
- Some problems with students are …
- The most help we could get as volunteers would be…
After lunch, Marion Chang held a workshop on how to teach pronunciation incidentally during conversation. We heard two different speech samples from ESL learners. After listening through the samples several times, we discussed where and when we would correct, and what would be the best ways to provide feedback.
We closed our meeting with prayer following a list of prayer and praise items that had come out of our earlier discussion.
We thank God for His leading and encouragement throughout our time together. Many thanks are due to all participants for their great enthusiasm and willingness to share ideas. Thanks also to go to High Park teachers for hosting.