October 2019

News from Rural Routes

I’m not sure what happened to September – it was here and gone. The highlight was Symposium, where lots of learning takes place, contacts get made and re-made, and many good ideas and plans are hatched. This year was no exception. I was very pleased to make contact with people I had not met before, and I look forward to getting to know them and their communities better in the year to come.

New workshops

Rural Routes continues to change and develop new workshops to meet the needs of CALPs and their learners and facilitators. Right now we are working on ESL Out of the Box – non-traditional ways of delivering ESL, and Community Partnerships, a workshop to support CALPs wanting to connect with employers of newcomers in their community to better meet language training needs that benefit both newcomers and the companies that employ them. Look for both these workshops in late fall.

The team – an Update

We are settling into our new routine of having Dorte Weber serve as advisor to Regions 1 & 2: North and East-West, while Jacky Rivas continues to serve Central, as well as providing the Intercultural Communication workshops series online, and Alana Johnson looks after region South, which continues to be a very busy region.

Dorte is heavily booked in October, but there are lots of dates available for training in November/ December, so go ahead and call.

Webinars

The following webinars are coming up in October/November:

• October 16: Task-based Teaching
• October 29: Tips and Tools for Successful Conversation Groups
• November 14: Teaching ESL Literacy Learners
• November 25: Developing Indigenous Awareness in Rural Routes

The following Lunch and Learn sessions are coming up:

• October 24: Growth and Goal Setting
• November 4: Strategies for Teaching Reading
• November 20: Strategies for Teaching Writing
• December 5: Strategies for Teaching Listening

Please consult the website at eslruralroutes.norquest.ca/events to get the details and links to registration. Look for the occasional guest presenter for these webinars.

A year ago we introduced online registration for webinars in order to be able to account to our funders for our online activity. We are grateful to our webinar participants for taking the trouble to register online and helping us be accountable.