February 2024 Student awards
2024 Taiga Galli Memorial Refugee Award – $4,000
Growing up in Afghanistan, Milad Rajabi realized that for her family to stay together and prosper, they needed to leave their homeland. They experienced kindness while living temporarily in Turkey but found a new home once in Canada. She refers to her experiences as, “a story of not giving up, hoping for better things, and changing for the good.”
2024 TCF Refugee Award – $4,000
Being a Yemeni living in Saudia Arabia, Salem Wahas faced educational barriers despite having the drive and qualifications to enter university. With a short time in Yemen and the US, he finally found the welcome reception in Canada. Though his first winter in Montreal was hard, he tried his luck in Toronto. Douglas College turned out to be a best fit for him to learn English and soon Computing Science.
2024 Dr. William McMichael TCF Refugee Award – $4,000
Muntasir Abbakar saw his homeland of Sudan ravaged by war. His family sought peace and opportunity first in Jordan. His classroom was his sanctuary. But economic conditions were difficult, which caused stress on his whole family. They came to Canada for it’s inclusivity and access to quality education. He hopes to study a business program either at UBC or Okanagan College.
2024 Nicholas Collins Founders Refugee Award – $4,000
Jorya Alshahoud learned at a young age that war ruins families. Hers was intact as they became refugees, each doing their part to provide for each other. Coming to Canada, the whole family went back to school to earn high school diplomas as well as some, like Joyra, having plans for post-secondary. She hopes to work in health care, helping the less fortunate with compassion and empathy.
2024 David Lam/BC TEAL English Language Learner Scholarships – $4000 each
Olivia Chung was raised as an active, highly imaginative girl in Taiwan. She moved to Canada with her family when she was in Grade 5. Culture shock set in as she struggled with the new language and social norms; she calls this her “silent period.” With time, patience and support of her loving teachers, she soon started to embrace opportunities for growth and now helps those who were in her shoes before.
Tian Tian Chen fills her days with academic rigor and compassionate volunteering opportunities. Fueled by her profound passion for personal well-being and a strong desire to contribute to the human services sector, she is determined to pursue science-based programs, specifically in the fields of biochemistry or dietetics.
November 2023 Educator Awards
2023 Project Funding Award – $2,500
BC TEAL has a long tradition of supporting cross-cultural understanding through the teaching of English as an Additional Language. The 2024 Annual Conference will build on that tradition and support our reputation as a leader in the industry. The conference will challenge attendees to experience some of the various lenses our industry is seen through and encourage them to look through these lenses and see what they do from other perspectives.
2023 Pat Wakefield Scholarship – $3,000
Dr. Shahid Abrar-ul-Hassan has a long and distinguished record of service to the field of English language teaching to his credit. He has made outstanding contributions to the profession and represented the diverse educational community in teaching, research and leadership positions. He brings to the field a combination of formal training, personal attributes and motivation that position him for professional service to English language teaching, assessment and research, which will be added to in Malaysia.
2023 BC TEAL/TESOL Award – $1,000
Jing Mao’s work as a Learning Transformation Specialist at Coast Mountain College has given her the opportunity to EAL students. She has been instrumental in leading workshops related to intercultural learning and communication. Attending BC TEAL conferences empower her work to serve the student population more.
2023 Nan Poliakoff Memorial Awards – $1,000 each
Jennifer Walsh Marr’s PhD research focuses on discipline-specific writing instruction in the context of internationalized, multilingual post-secondary education. She has many published articles and will use her research to advocate for learners and programming in future academic and professional pursuits.
Mary Bertucci is an exceptional educator and engaging presenter. This award facilitated Mary’s participation in the BC TEAL Regional Conference in Victoria on February 24, 2024 where she presented “A Powwow Story”, a truly unique resource as it is written by an EAL teacher and is based on her personal life-experience.
2023 Mary Ashworth Scholarship – $1,000
Olessya Akimenko’s research has been inspired by her own experiences of EAL teacher identity navigations as a white “non-native” EFL teacher in her home country of Kazakhstan and, later, as a “non-native” EAL teacher in Vancouver, Canada, after moving for her doctoral studies. Her conference presentation is an excerpt of her broader doctoral research study and has already been accepted for presentation at two well-respected and highly competitive scholarly conferences.