Southern Ontario Cooperative of ESL Ministries
By Jennifer Tong If you live in Ontario, you probably remember the big ice storm of 2013. It was a few days before Christmas. For many, the memories included being forced to leave their homes and stay elsewhere. It was difficult, a struggle. We then had a taste of being ‘displaced persons’, forced to leave […]
[Part 1 of the interview can be accessed here.] ESL Link: What is the most rewarding thing in your teaching or tutoring? AU: Relationships. These people become friends. You have good companions. They ask you, they task you. You build relationships. I personally don’t like to teach in groups. I don’t think group teaching is […]
Sandy has been my ESL class teacher. The atmosphere in her ESL class was always joyful and harmonious. Classmates and Sandy made friends with each other. In March 2019, I was lucky to join Sandy’s Bible study classes; all of my classmates were from the ESL class. We were excited. This was the first time […]
By Kaarina HsiehLead Pastor, Parkway Forest Community Church Recently, I met a kind, thoughtful man who came to Canada from Brazil with his wife and daughter mere weeks before Toronto went into lockdown because of the global pandemic. To be newer to Canada, arriving with so many hopes and dreams of new work, new friendships […]
Editor’s Note: Over the past year or so, issues of racism and discrimination have been much in the spotlight. This only helps to highlight the realities that some of our ESL students may be faced with day to day. The following is a piece written by a friend of SOCEM, an ESL teacher, about her […]
SOCEM is looking for a volunteer Communications Assistant to help with Newsletters, website management and Mailchimp communications. Role descriptions are below. Please contact eslministries@gmail.com if you are interested. Role SummaryThe Communications Assistant supports the work of SOCEM leadership through formatting and designing the 5 times per year email newsletter (“The ESL link”) and maintaining the […]
By Kathleen Barnard i saw a man with his childwalk along a path before meshe walked ahead of himhe followed closely behindwatching herwaiting for herwatching all aroundthey passed byout of my line of sight a while laterthey walked backwell …he walked backcarrying her in his armsstill watchingholding her tightly moments laterhe placed her gently on […]
ESL Link: Hello Andrew. Thank you for chatting with us. I know that you are not originally from Canada. Can you tell us a bit about your background? AU: I’m from Poland. During WWII I was a soldier in the Polish Underground Army fighting the Nazis. I experienced Nazi occupation. In 1944 I took part […]
By Jennifer Tong Many of our church-based ESL classes tend to be informal. This means classes are smaller; there may not be a fixed curriculum, the leaders are often conversation facilitators rather than ‘teachers’, and there may not be formal procedures of assessments or advancing from one level to another. Often, organizers aspire towards being […]
I found out not every ESL class is suitable for me. I tried some other ESL classes before, but I feel bored, so I gave up in a few months. I didn’t know why I chose this particular ESL class this time. This location was far from my house, but this ESL class is the […]