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Articles on ESL

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English language teachers should encourage students to draw on their own mother tongues. Here, children participate in learning to help Syrian refugee youths prepare for school at the H.appi Camp in Toronto, July 2016. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

Language learning in Canada needs to change to reflect ‘superdiverse’ communities

How we teach languages has not evolved much from the traditional grammar-based mode of instruction, and this approach alone marginalizes students’ existing knowledge and communication abilities.
The myth of Asians being good at math both encourages a “blame-the-victim” approach to math failure and imposes significant psycho-social pressure on high-achieving students. (Chuttersnap/Unsplash)

Racist stereotyping of Asians as good at math masks inequities and harms students

A Vancouver study found Mandarin-speaking girls were more likely to be eligible for university than Cantonese-speaking boys. High-achieving students were from wealthier families who had tutors.
Luiz Capitulino,11, and his mom Sheyla Do Vale of Brazil embrace after becoming official Canadians during a citizenship ceremony at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa on Monday, Sept. 25, 2017. CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

It’s time to change the way we teach English

The language learning approach called “plurilingualism” empowers people to draw on many languages and cultural modes of communicating.

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