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.
November 2022 Educator Awards
2022 Project Funding Awards
Anu Pala is one of the recipients of the Project Funding Award in the sum of $2500. The project will focus on understanding the challenges and barriers that immigrants and refugees with diverse abilities including partial and complete vision loss face in the post-secondary environment.
The BC TEAL Conference Committee, represented by conference chair Neil Leveridge, is the other recipient of the Project Funding Award in the sum of $2500. The project is the 2023 conference itself, which, in addition to a diverse array of TEAL-related presentations, offers unique workshops from indigenous artists and elders as well as exploration and reflection walks in order to give attendees experiences of learning from the land.
2022 Pat Wakefield Scholarship
Calisto Mudzingwa is the recipient of the Pat Wakefield Scholarship in the sum of $3000. He plans to travel to Australia to attend workshops, speak to educators and government officials, and survey student experiences as immigrants to Australia. Using this information, Dr. Mudzingwa will present to BC TEAL shared successes and ideas how to better help the Canadian immigrant.
November 2021 TCF Awards for Educators
2021 TCF Health Education Awards
Dr. William Tsai, of the Canada New Horizons for Seniors Program, will use his $4000 award to help fund a project bringing HIV/AIDS awareness to newcomer populations via informational sessions at shelters, settlement agencies, AIDS service organizations, and LGBT agencies. These sessions will include safe sex practices, stigmatization, immigration policies, and disclosure issues, among other topics.
Victoria Surtees and her team at the University of the Fraser Valley will use their $4000 award to develop instructional materials to be used as a bridge to certification in First Aid for job-seeking immigrants. These will involve interactive activities to be offered online as well as those that can be used by teachers in the classroom. This arose out of a need identified by immigrant support providers in the Fraser Valley. The instructional materials will be aligned with the CLB curriculum.
Natalie Anderson, with Impact North Shore (formerly the North Shore Multicultural Society), will use her $4000 award to make mental health in transition more relevant and accessible via online interactive H5P activities based on the LINC curriculum, in response to demand on Tutela and other platforms.
2021 Project Funding Award
The BC TEAL Conference Committee was awarded the 2021 Project Funding Award, valued at $2,500. The award was used to support the 2022 BC TEAL Conference which provides professional development for the EAL practitioners across BC and Canada. This annual conference provides an excellent opportunity for EAL practitioners to share their knowledge, learn from each other and build their professional networks.
2021 Nan Poliakoff Memorial Award
The 2021 Nan Poliakoff Memorial Award, valued at $1,000, was awarded to Shahid Abrar-ul-Hassan, a doctoral student at UBC. He used the award to attend the 2022 TESOL International Conference in Pittsburgh. As a delegate, Shahid was able to present his paper on assessment, exchange ideas and learn more about his field of study at the conference.
November 2020 Awards for Educators
TCF Health Education Awards – $4000
Sylvia Helmer
Sylvia Helmer’s exciting project is part of an ongoing effort to enhance the capacity of the developers and creators of informative presentations to support the needs of EAL seniors. By doing so, she hopes to reduce their loneliness and isolation.
Project Funding Award – $5000
BC TEAL Conference Committee
BC TEAL continues to be a major influence in EAL instruction. This grant was to allow them to host another virtual conference including multiple presenters and plenary speakers.
Project Funding Award – $2500
Beth Maschmann
Beth Maschmann’s project is rooted in advocacy and awareness building as well as collaborative and community-building practices. This project is to better understand the experiences of our international/migrant student worker population in consideration of need and accessibility to workers’ rights resources and workshops.
Settlement Language Resource Award – $3000
Calla Zhang
The TCF helped Calla Zhang with this award to create, through her work with Mosaic, 20 H5P listening toolkits on common settlement topics for LINC 1-4 (5 tasks with accompanying skill-building activities and paper-based portfolio tools per level x 4 levels = 20 skill-using tasks in total).
You can find the link to these materials on this page: https://tealcharitablefoundation.ca/tcf-funded-teaching-and-learning-materials/
November 2019 Educator Awards
Elizabeth Spalding Wins the 2019 Pat Wakefield Scholarship
Elizabeth Spalding has been awarded this year’s Pat Wakefield Scholarship, valued at $3,000. Elizabeth will use the scholarship to attend the 2020 IATEFL Conference in Manchester, England. At the conference, Elizabeth will focus on her areas of interest, which include Mobile Assisted Language Learning (MALL) as well as curriculum design, project-based learning, and learning technology. Elizabeth will present a workshop summarizing her experience at the 2020 IATEFL Conference at the 2020 BC TEAL Conference and will also submit an article to the BC TEAL Newsletter.
Shahid Abrar-ul-Hassan Awarded the 2019 Mary Ashworth Scholarship
Shahid Abrar-ul-Hassan wins this year’s Mary Ashworth Scholarship valued at $1000. Shahid will use the scholarship to travel to the 2020 TESOL International Convention in Denver, Colorado. Shahid will present a paper at the conference based on his doctoral studies in English for Academic Purposes and assessment practices and will also exchange his research with his international professional colleagues. Shadid will present a workshop and share his research at the 2020 BC TEAL Conference and/or write an article for the BC TEAL Journal.
Michael Landry Awarded the 2019 Mary Ashworth Scholarship
Michael Landry has won this year’s Mary Ashworth Scholarship valued at $1,000. Michael plans to use his scholarship to travel to the 2020 TESOL International Convention in Denver, Colorado. He has been accepted as a co-presenter for a poster session exploring the impacts of studying English for Academic Purposes. It will also be an opportunity to network with other doctoral students and review the latest research in the field. Michael will share his TESOL experience in an article in the BC TEAL Newsletter.
BC TEAL Conference Committee Awarded the 2019 Project Funding Award
The 2020 BC TEAL Conference Committee has been awarded the 2020 Project Funding Award valued at $2,500. The BC TEAL Conference Committee will use the award to support the cost of providing three internationally recognized keynote speakers for this year’s BC TEAL Conference scheduled for April 23, 24, and 25th at Douglas College. This annual conference attracts over 350 English language professionals and features two full days of professional development featuring presentations, workshops, panel discussions, networking events, publishers’ displays, and outstanding international plenary speakers.
Linda Peteherych Wins the 2019 Nan Poliakoff Memorial Award
Linda Peteherych wins this year’s Nan Poliakoff Memorial Award valued at $1,000. Linda used her award to present at the 2019 Decoda Literacy Conference, and to create a set of Letter-Sound Linking Charts for adult literacy instructors and students. This adult literacy instruction resource can be found on our Resources Page.
Natalie Anderson & Alison Heath Win the 2019 Health Education Award
Natalie Anderson and Alison Heath have been awarded this year’s Health Education Award valued at $4,000. Natalie and Alison will use their award to develop a PBLA-aligned curriculum for CLB 3 – 8 to help learners to describe their feelings, moods and mental health conditions. The curriculum will include activities to increase access to mental health services in the community and respond to mental health issues of well-being. The project will be shared at the 2020 BC TEAL Conference and in the BC TEAL Newsletter.
Diana Jeffries Wins the 2019 Settlement Language Resource Award
Diana Jeffries wins this year’s Settlement Language Resource Award with a value of $3000. Diana will use her award to develop CLB 5+ language lessons focusing on teaching ‘Settlement Decolonization in the EAL Classroom.’ The lessons will help students understand the complexities of the relationship between indigenous peoples and settler communities in Canada. Diana will share her resource for CLB 5+ at the 2020 BC TEAL Conference. See Diana’s resource Indigenous People and Canada.