Southern Ontario Cooperative of ESL Ministries
SOCEM’s annual fall training conference, Gathering XIX, took place on Saturday, October 26, 2024 at Martin Grove Baptist Church in Etobicoke. Close to 50 gathered in-person for a day of equipping, networking and sharing together surrounding matters of ESL ministries. After a brief devotional and worship time at the sanctuary, participants divided into different sub-groups […]
Christmas is fast coming and many of us have started thinking about Christmas special activities with our students. Here are some ideas collected from different churches in the past, as well as some fresh ideas. If you pause and think, ideas can be endless. Might you send your ideas to us at eslministries@gmail.com? Remember that […]
Check out the rich Christmas resources on our SOCEM site including Christmas lessons from the Virtues series and the Conversation Guides: https://eslministries.org/resources/teaching-materials/seasonal-resources/ An excellent reading about the North American Christmas traditions, with a glossary: http://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/christmasday.pdf Christmas traditions around the world; good for starting conversations with students: http://www.whychristmas.com/cultures/ http://www.santas.net/aroundtheworld.htm https://www.whychristmas.com/customs/ Stories behind favourite Christmas carols and […]
By Tom More The winter solstice, December 21, marks the darkest day of the year. For an ancient people, the sun giving way earlier each day, relenting more and more to the darkness, must have carried with it the question of whether the light would ever return at all. World plunged into darkness. Christmas, then, […]
By Carey Jo Johnston The need for ESL ministries is growing in Canada as the number of newcomers increases each year. More Christians and Churches are realizing that they have an amazing opportunity to share the love of Jesus with newcomers through ESL ministry. Sometimes trying to start and keep an ESL ministry going seems […]
By Mary-Jane Davison Fight4Freedom (F4F) is a Christian ministry that outreaches to and journeys with individuals impacted by the sex industry and trafficking. F4F outreach teams visit locations known to have sex industry activities and seek to build relationships with the individuals at those locations. When they express interest to receive support and/or would like […]
Joyce always goes to class on time. She is the only one who is there on the snowy evenings in winter. She is shy and never speaks much during the class. Sometimes she writes down new words and looks them up in the dictionary at home. She likes grammar exercises, but she does not like […]
By Linda Reed What a summer! Heavy Rain, Soaring Heat, Hours of Olympics, and . . . a changed Heart. My heart was deeply moved through visiting a large house for incoming refugees, Adam House, in Toronto. How can it be people arrive at Pearson with nowhere to go? Housing and work are now real […]
In the Fall of 2022, some of you participated in a survey for volunteers working in church-based ESL programs. A summary of the result was published in The ESL Link Volume 14.1 in February 2023. The author of the survey, Gordon Moulden, has written an article based on this survey with additional information. The article […]
By Allan Pole We want to help new Canadians communicate in English so that they can thrive in a community. We do this by establishing common ground, where our lives intersect, and we recognize we are alike in more ways than might first appear. The Latin word “communis” and the Old French word form “comun” […]