Canada, like other first-world countries, relies in large part on professional immigrants trained in other cultures and languages to complement its workforce in a wide range of professions, including medicine. International medical graduates (IMGs) who are nonnative English-speaking (NNES) and who have trained in different medical contexts are…

Pragmatic competence is one of the essential competences taught in the second language classroom. The Canadian Language Benchmarks (CCLB, 2012a), the standard document referred to in any federally funded program of ESL teaching in Canada, acknowledges the importance of this competence, yet at the same time notes the limited resources available to…

This article examines the treatment of culture and the development of interculturality in the transcripts of a complete 36-hour ESL course organized by a community center in Montreal. The adult participants came from a variety of linguistic and cultural backgrounds. The adult second-language class has been identified as a potentially rich context…

This article describes a culturally integrated approach to teaching English as an Additional Language (EAL) through Roots and Connections: A Culturally Integrated ESL Curriculum for Community Orientation in Alberta. This was developed by the Centre for Intercultural Education to integrate intercultural sensitivity into English-language…

Complex linguistic, acculturative, and social needs of English-as-a-second-language (ESL) learners challenge the K-12 education system to develop cultural competence in working with culturally diverse families. This study surveyed 242 self-identified ESL students and their parents from four of Alberta's major school boards. Results of the survey…

The Coalition for Equal Access to Education (CEAE) is a Calgary-based nonprofit organization committed to working with community, education, and government stakeholders to promote access to quality, equitable education and services for K-12 English-as-a-second-language (ESL) learners. CEAE is active in developing innovative projects, research…

The purpose of this article is to describe the sociocultural learning of 40 second-year students in a Bachelor of Arts in English-as-an-additional-language (EAL) program in Auckland, New Zealand. These learners participated in a teaching and learning intervention involving journalized community placement. The study illustrates how reflective…

Robert Courchene's 1996 article entitled "Teaching Canadian Culture: Teacher Preparation" sparked a conversation in the pages of the "TESL Canada Journal" that continues today. From advocating the teaching of significant historical events and icons to encouraging second-language learners to embrace cultural ambiguity, there is a wide spectrum of…

This article explores how Egan's (1997) work on imagination can enrich our understanding of teaching English as a second language (ESL). Much has been written on ESL teaching techniques; however, some of this work has been expounded in a standard educational framework, which is what Egan calls an assembly-line model. This model can easily underlie…

Through multiple case studies, this article examines the learning experiences of three Korean students in a MATESOL program and how they made sense of the Discourses (Gee, 1996) that they encountered in their course work. The students experienced enculturation on three interrelated dimensions: disciplinary, linguistic, and cultural knowledge, the…

This article presents an autoethnographical account of my foray into Spanish immersion education in Costa Rica as a professor of multilingual education at a university in Canada. This language-learning journey was inspired by curiosity about the growing trend for Internet marketing of second-language learning as a form of tourism, which I label…

Recognizing that to learn about culture will aid the new Canadian in attaining cultural awareness, this article argues that it is imperative to develop strategies for teaching about culture. Using folklore as a critical methodology in the ESL classroom is such a strategy. Because folklore is an intrinsic part of everyday life, its use promotes and…

Reacts to an article by Ilieva (2001), "Living with Ambiguity: Toward Culture Exploration in Adult Second-Language Classrooms." The article argues for the importance of students' in taking ownership of their experiences in the mainstream culture. Expands on two issues touched on the first article: what is involved in student ethnography and the…

Offers a rejoinder to a response written about a previous article, "Living with Ambiguity: Toward Culture Exploration in Adult Second-Language Classrooms." Suggests the response offers a useful contribution to a much-needed conversation on how to attend to culture in adult second language classrooms at a time of the reconceptualization of the…

Examined the cultural content of Russian-published English reference literature. The goal of the research is to help Canadian teachers working with English-as-a-Second-Language learners to become more aware of the experiences, expectations, and views their students bring to the classroom. (Author/VWL)