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What’s changing in English Language Teaching and Testing in 2026? Some highlights from a conversation between Cathoven AI’s CEO, Summer G. Long, and Erez Tocker (CEO, Trinity College, London):

 

  • The need for English language learning (and other languages) is still there, potentially growing. AI (such as industry leader Cathoven AI) hasn’t taken that away.
  • But when countries reduce their intake of international students, those students worry about completing a four-year degree, so demand (for ESL/EFL teaching) wanes.
  • The global economy also challenges the language education industry; English language study abroad is less affordable for most middle-class families, world-wide.
  • The Pandemic has similarly affected students’ English studies. It makes sense to “stay home to stay healthy” when learning a language. and as Tocker says at the end of 2025, “Duolingo is having a great year” teaching students online.
  • AI can improve language learning by lowering the stakes when giving students in-time (individual) feedback, AI gives confidence to students to try speaking, when they’re not in front of many peers (“a safe comfort zone”), or by placing them in different, simulated settings. And hiring an AI teacher is cheaper than working with a live tutor, over the same number of hours.
  • But some things are lost when language teaching goes online:  AI can give “too much feedback,” consistently, which can make students feel there’s no end to the need for improvement. By contrast, a human class offers a (provisional) end, so learning can coalesce in students’ brains.
  • AI also can’t provide the context by which students’ brains process and learn new things. Only a classroom can provide an “experience.”
  • Tocker says we must ensure our education systems develop 21st Century skills, including “soft skills” (e.g. workplace readiness, but the “workplaces” of the future are “fuzzy” now). GenZers will need to learn how to network and handle job interviews. When they’ve spent all their time using AI, they may lack such “soft skills.” Who will teach them those?
  • Community and context are very important (e.g. both Long and Tocker met at a live [in-person] conference and their online conversation spun out of that in-person meeting).
  • A useful analogy is MS Excel: when Excel was invented, it didn’t end the teaching/learning of mathematics. But Excel provided a tool that freed specialists from using pencils and paper.
  • Excel and AI are technologies that humans now can use.
  • But AI is (of course) more complex than Excel–it will take much more time to figure out how to incorporate AI into education and all vocational fields (e.g. accounting).
  • AI testing won’t replace standardized language exams, like IELTS. But Tocker says it will “shrink the number of players” in the space of English language testing.
  • There are many limits to standardized language exams. Students often worry more about learning exam-taking skills than they do about learning  how to communicate accurately. ESL should never take as its focus only standardized exams. (Teaching students strategy to master a particular kind of test is not ultimately edifying.)
  • Human teachers can help students to improve intonation, learn more collocations and impart students with skills needed in life.
  • One way to empower language education (including great teachers) is to invest some of the profit from (language testing) companies to sponsor students from “have-not” countries. That investment would help students to gain access to overseas colleges and companies, where they can learn new languages.
  • Over time, as Tocker concluded, “patient” strategies for teaching move education and the workplace ahead, better and faster, than “top-down,” hierarchical approaches. But enlightened education requires patience and won’t develop and evolve as rapidly as AI does.
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Feeling the Christmas or Holiday Blues? Here are some solutions . . .

December 2025 Vol 11 Issue 12

Tell Your Story Newsletter (TYSN):

Teaching English to economic immigrants and to internationally educated, second-language academics

Let Us Help You Tell Your Story!

 

Welcome Mid-December, 2025!  

Until the past few days, we have enjoyed a mild winter in Saskatchewan. But last Friday, winter’s hoary breath returned, with its usual arctic chill.

When extreme cold weather ends our year, I know that you, good readers (like me), grow especially worried for the health and safety of our homeless population.

Existing shelter facilities like The Salvation Army  Residential Services (for men) and The YWCA  (for women and families) continue to provide support, often reaching capacity during the extreme cold.

It has been heartening throughout 2025 to watch the efficient building and opening of a large extension to The YWCA shelter, near where I exercise, which has added 75 new shelter beds for women and children.

Newspaper and digital news readers also know that we have a new facility (operating year-round), called “The Mustard Seed Temporary Enhanced Emergency Shelter” at 210 Pacific Avenue. It has 40 temporary beds, providing 24/7 access and full support services, including some transitional support toward long-term housing.

This shelter fills a gap until a permanent, 60-bed shelter is built at 170-31st Street, E. (near Harry Bailey Aquatic Centre).

The City and Province are trying to provide sufficient shelter, when the goal remains to keep as many of our region’s most vulnerable citizens (some who have migrated from northern communities) out of the cold. 

So many of you and those in our networks regularly pitch in and help! Through the “Advent Appeal” program at St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church (ably facilitated by member, Alan Ireland), once again this year, we have been collecting parkas, clothing, boots, warm blankets, sleeping bags and hygiene supplies on behalf of Saskatoon’s homeless and at-risk population. This month’s “Storyteller’s Corner” reminds me that even small acts of kindness can have a miraculous effect on others.

Notwithstanding the soaring cost-of-living, including basic groceries and amenities,  I hope that you, good reader, have a warm and in all senses “safe” home, not just at Christmas or Hanukkah, but also throughout the year. 

As 2025 draws to an end, some of you have remembered in your Christmas letters the ongoing (and complex) wars waged between Palestinian militant groups led by Hamas, and Israel; Russian forces against Ukraine; and a civil war in Sudan (raging for nearly three years), to name only three regions with massive humanitarian crises.

We can and do make a difference by sharing what surplus food and supplies we have, be it locally or internationally. (My social media feed shows many of you doing this!)  And we must vote for governments which find value in the sanctity of human life and act with empathy, as well as rigour.

In this last newsletter of 2025, I return to “Coping with Christmas,” a publication of the American Hospice Foundation (AHF). For those readers who care for others (young or old) on a daily basis and/or who face complex health problems of your own, the AHF reminds us to be attuned to our own emotional needs, not least when we face “compassion fatigue” or burnout.

Despite the challenges that fill the news, I hope, good readers, that you’ll have the health and opportunity to enjoy these last weeks of 2025, giving thanks with me for the family, friends and neighbours (including newcomers) who grace our lives.

I wish you Peace this holiday season and much health and happiness in 2026.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth  Principal  Storytelling Communications   www.elizabethshih.com

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IN THIS ISSUE:

ARTICLE One: Feeling the Christmas blues? Here are some solutions . . . 

STORYTELLERS’ CORNER: A Local “Advent Miracle” Story   

SHOP NEWS

ABOUT US

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Article One: Feeling the Christmas or Holiday Blues? Here are Some Solutions . . . 

For many of us, even if we have been raised to observe Christmas or Hanukkah (or other holy days) as a blessing, the holiday season can still be painful.

The pain may come from the loss of a loved one, a job, separation from a significant other, health or financial difficulties, the excessive pressure to buy and give, and so on. The so-called “holiday season” can in reality be anything but “ho-ho-ho.”

This holiday survival guide, written originally by the American Hospice Foundation, offers some ideas that may help us as we plan (or choose not to plan) holiday festivities.

Please read on and know that you are not alone in the loss or pain you’re enduring:

Christmas or Holiday cards (choose one):

1. Mail as usual

2. Shorten your list

3. Include a Christmas letter that you’ve written

4. Skip it this year

Christmas or Holiday music (choose one):

1. Enjoy as usual

2. Shop early, to avoid Christmas music

3. Avoid turning the radio on

4. Listen to the music and allow yourself to feel sad (or to cry)

Decorations (choose one):

1. Decorate as usual

2. Let others do it

3. Choose not to have decorations

4. Have a special decoration for a loved one, who may have died or left

5. Modify your decorations

6. Make changes, such as an artificial tree

7. Ask for help

Shopping (choose one):

1. Shop as usual

2. Shop early

3. Make your gifts

4. Make a list of gifts to buy

5. Shop through the internet

6. Ask for help wrapping gifts

7. Shop with a friend

8. Give cash

9. Give baked goods

10. Ask for help

11. Go gift-less and make a donation to charity

Traditions (choose one):

1. Keep the old traditions

2. Don’t attend Christmas parties

3. Open gifts on the usual day

4. Attend a worship service

5. Attend a totally different place of worship

6. Visit the cemetery

7. Attend Christmas parties

8. Go to an entirely new place

9. Open gifts at another time

10. Do not attend a worship service

11. Light a special candle to honour your loved one

12. Bake the usual foods

13. Modify your baking

14. Buy the usual foods

15. Spent quiet time alone, in meditation or relaxation

Christmas or Holiday Dinner (choose one):

1. Prepare as usual

2. Invite friends over

3. Eat in a different location of the house

4. Go out to dinner, possibly with someone else who is alone

5. Eat alone

6. Change time of dinner

7. Have a buffet/potluck

8. Ask for help

Post-Christmas and New Year’s Day (choose one):

1. Spend the days as usual

2. Avoid New Year’s parties

3. Spend time with only a few friends

4. Write in a journal about your hopes for the next year

5. Go out of town

6. Host a New Year’s Party

7. Go to a movie, watch a movie on a streaming service or even borrow a movie from the library

8. Go to bed early and feel refreshed the next morning for the new year ahead

And now it’s your turn: Does the Christmas or Hanukkah season present challenges for you? Please consider some of the above options you have to experience the holidays on your own terms.

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STORYTELLER’S CORNER: Words, Stories and Riddles  on Writing and Editing . . .

This Month (Back by Popular Request):

A Local “Advent Miracle” Story 

Last Christmas, Alan, a colleague and friend in my church community, shared a remarkable story of how the church’s seasonal gift donations benefited a downtown charity that helps victims of abuse and homelessness.

Alan says that one recent spring, “I went into the [church] parlour and noticed that the Advent gifts still sat where we’d left them, last December, since the office of the recipient agency was never open. I had phoned, left messages and visited in person multiple times, only to find the office closed.”

He continues: “As I was driving past one day, the spring after, I decided to give it one last chance and showed up to the agency, just after lunch. They were open!

It was obvious that the staff had just come from a meeting. One of the folk there came over and asked me what I wanted. I told her that I was from the church and had some very belated Advent gifts for them.

She looked confused when I said gifts, but when I said that the gifts consisted of toiletries and other items, it changed to surprise. She asked how many, and I told her that the trunk of my car was full. Again, there was a look of surprise on her face. She spoke with the director and then went into the back and got a small cart. We then went down the car and loaded it up. It was a small cart, so I carried the extra packages that didn’t fit.

When we got back to the office, she took the items into the back and the director came over and thanked me profusely. She told me that the topic of conversation at the meeting they’d just finished was how they were going to find toiletries to fill packages for some of their clients. They had a few items, but not nearly enough, and there wasn’t money in the budget to purchase more. They left the meeting wondering how they’d find the remaining items, and that was when I walked in!

We called it “Christmas in June!” We could have delivered the gifts the prior December, when other churches were doing the same and when the need was largely met. But by delivering them in the spring, we met a great need at a time when others were not giving.

We can put this down to coincidence or fate or luck. I look at it as an Advent miracle and a sign that our Higher Power is alive and well and living among us.”

And now it’s your turn: Have holiday activities of years past surprised you with any small miracles? Please write in and I’ll share your stories in a future issue!

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SHOP NEWS:

It’s time, once again, good readers, for a “Gratitude Roundup” for 2025–my opportunity to thank those in my professional and personal network who help to make life as fulfilling and purposeful as it is!

Thanks are due this year to ESL teacher, Steve Cavan, who has shared resources and thoughts with me, when I’ve been preparing different ESL classes.

Steve is a font of knowledge both of the English language and of the practice of online teaching. Thank you, good friend, for sharing all you do.

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Thanks also go out this month to bookkeeper, Heather Stuart, whose intelligence and knowledge of tax rules always help me administer my small business books.

After nearly 14 years of working together, I’ve learned the basics of good record keeping. I’m grateful both to Praxis School of Entrepreneurship’s (PSE) training, and especially to  Heather for that!

Thank you, Heather!

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Last July, Leslie, a psychologist with Saskatoon Public Schools, referred a case of a youth with literacy challenges to me, whom I found I could help (and enjoyed helping). There may be more students to come in 2026, which I keenly anticipate.

I’m glad to find I can adjust my academic and/or adult ESL vantage point, to fill the needs of younger learners, too.

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Another note of gratitude goes to Chief Visionary Officer, Monica Kreuger, for having mentored me for one final year (through the Raj Manek Mentorship Program), as I’ve developed my English language teaching and writing business.

Monica, her life and business partner, Brent Kreuger, and their team have worked for more than 30 years to train and advocate for many of our province’s entrepreneurs, through the Praxis School of Entrepreneurship (PSE).

More than 1200 proteges have entered that programming at both start-up and intermediate levels and have found their lives (and not only their businesses) transformed in the process.

Thank you Monica and to the Praxis Team!

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The past week has been somewhat trying for me, as I’ve been fighting off a virulent strain of flu, while completing work and trying to prepare, both for holidays and January contracts. (Sound familiar to you, good readers?)

Although I was scheduled to assist with reading and lighting candles for the annual–and very beautiful–Christian service, “Memory & Light” (St. Andrew’s Presbyterian),  I had to bow out last week to recover.

However, thanks to the wonderful live-stream recording staff, I was grateful to watch the service online.

Friends from my church community have blessed me greatly with their “Get Well” messages, gifts of soup and nourishing food, wonderful home remedies, cough syrup, food deliveries, recommended reading and more!

I am very grateful to these friends, many of whom are St. Andrew’s members (and I apologize if I forget anyone’s name): Rev. Roberto DeSandoli, The Pastoral Care Committee, St. Andrew’s Session and Board of Directors; Mrs. Heather DeSandoli; Mrs. Laura Van Loon (Parish Nurse); Rev. Jim and Mrs. Lillian McKay; Dr. Kirk Ready and Heather Shouse; Beth and JoAnn Brimner; Sharon Wiseman, Judy McFadden and Pat Barber, Rose and Orlanda Drebit and Bob Yakubowski.

Thank you all!

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This Christmas will bring some relief to my aunt and uncle in the Okanagan, who have (hours ago) received notice that my uncle can be admitted into Long-Term Care (LTC), after neurological decline.

I hope and pray that my cousins will rally around them and give them support.

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My thoughts go to my friend Lisa in Toronto, who lost her father in October and is now caring for her elderly mother. Lisa also must clear through her parents’ home, with limited available help from siblings and other family members. I  send warm thoughts and best wishes as you do this work, Lisa. Wish I could be there to assist.

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And finally, my elderly but much-loved mother passed away last May, so this Christmas will be my first without her.

Even though it sounds cliche, I continue to be so glad she’s found peace. I equally appreciate the outpouring of affection and support from my family’s friends, colleagues and neighbours who survive her.

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ABOUT US:

Between 2011 and December 2018, Elizabeth Shih Communications chronicled the stories of B2B marketing and communications on the Prairies and across the country.

Effective January 1, 2019, I rebranded as “Storytelling Communications.” I now help economic immigrants to get better jobs or secure larger contracts by improving their language skills; I also help internationally educated, second-language academics to progress through the tenure-based promotion system more effectively.

The support that I offer these two groups of clients enables them to integrate more effectively into our local community than they would, working in isolation, without me.

Interested in learning more? Please contact me through my CASL-compliant website.

After I receive your message, I’ll be pleased to discuss services with you!

Please visit my website for more information (www.storytellingcommunications.ca).

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TEFL.org on the State of the Field Address (ESL/EFL teaching & learning)

 

📣CALLING ALL ESL/EFL Teachers and Learners!📣

✴️State of the Field Address: TEFL.org on teaching ESL in 2026✴️

Are you a newbie ESL/EFL teacher, an experienced one, or someone in-between, looking to refine your skillset and/or acquire more engaged students?

Tune in to TEFL.org’s State of the Field Address: What to know about and How to Build Confidence teaching ESL/EFL in 2026:

TEFL.org’s expert ESL/EFL teacher, Carl Cameron-Day, facilitated by seasoned operations manager, Alan Moir, will discuss these topics:

✅How to apply new technologies effectively
✅How to handle changes in students’ expectations
✅How to illumine emerging career pathways
✅How to explore key trends shaping our industry
✅Practical strategies for keeping up with AI, the uncertain world economy and politics
✅Actionable insights to help teachers thrive and feel confident in the year ahead.

💥 Join me on _Thursday (December 11th)_ at _11:00 am (CST)_ (5:00 pm GMT) to hear the State of “TEFL in 2026,” to hone your teaching game.
YT link is below:💥

https://lnkd.in/gTNNYwaH

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And . . .

☑️If you’re an ESL/EFL learner–an economic immigrant or internationally educated, second-language academic–looking to improve your English, to promote your business or to use English professionally, please tune in to this webinar, too!

You’ll learn some of the strategies that I’ll use to help you succeed!

👍 See you there!

ESL,#EFL, teachingenglish,languagelearning, TEFL2026,  #ESL2026
TEFLorg

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Seven ways to live more purposefully, in the mid-November issue of “Tell Your Story Newsletter”

November 2025   Vol 7 Issue 11

Tell Your Story Newsletter (TYSN):

Teaching English as a Second Language

to economic immigrants and second-language academics

Let us help you tell your story!

 

Welcome Mid-November 2025!

And just like that, winter descended on November 6th! The first snow of the season fell fast on the heels of rain that froze, delivering a treacherous double whammy for pedestrians and drivers.

And yet, like last November (as my newsletter archive testifies), this month has otherwise given us many days of above-seasonal warmth and bright sunshine (at or near +10 degrees Celsius). The snow and ice have melted!

To have seasons, and to notice the changes that come with each one, are distinctly Canadian–and, especially, Saskatchewanian.

The recently crimson “Manitoba Maple” tree across the street from my office reminds me that we are not only a country of winter!

As I prepare this issue of “TYSN,” we are observing Remembrance Day. Are you, like me, grieving the contents of the nightly news–a world dominated by deeply autocratic, power-hungry men, not only overseas but also close to home?

While the “leaders” of the US, Russia, China, North Korea, Israel, Afghanistan, and Sudan, to name a few, hoard material and military wealth while their own people or their neighbours suffer impoverishment, starvation, disease and an end to public education. How can we register our dissent?

As you know, good readers, we strive to stay informed about these injustices, to vote for leaders who oppose them, to support human rights’ groups and to donate to relevant charities. There are, however, smaller steps that each one of us can also take to improve our lives as part of our global community: we can live more thoughtfully.

This month, in “Article One,” I share some simple insights on seeking “richness”–not in material wealth, but in “slow living,” from Jade Bonacolta. A former Google executive, Bonacolta believes that coexisting with oppressed neighbours in a troubled world requires us to live more simply. I go one step further by trying to donate to specific causes, when I can.

In “Shop News” this month, I share a change in my contract work, as I accept an invitation to serve local children who are struggling to achieve literacy so crucial to their survival, and in our first-world country, too.

As we approach the end of 2025, may you, good readers, find ways to register dissent from the autocracies that have overtaken so much of our world. Led by men (and many fewer women) who divide and conquer by hate (putatively on the bases of race, gender, class, religion and age), these governments are rooted in greed and exclusion.

And amid the noise that the latest developments of Artificial Intelligence (AI) raise, we strive to remember that the fundamental freedom all humans deserve has only been achieved in our world by (the tragedy of) sacrifice.

As we observe this month of Remembrance, and as the late Jane Goodall has said, we must continue to resist tyranny by working for a better world. This means we must continue to believe each of us still has purpose and value, by which we can collectively overpower the malevolent forces that threaten our world.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth

Principal

Storytelling Communications

www.elizabethshih.com

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IN THIS ISSUE:

ARTICLE 1: Seven steps to live more purposefully (with Jade Bonacolta)

SHOP NEWS

ABOUT US

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Article One: Seven steps to live more purposefully, with Jade Bonacolta

 

With a weekly online newsletter polemically titled, “The Quiet Rich,” former Google executive and online coach Jade Bonacolta might appear to be part of the problem besetting western democratic countries—where free market capitalists pursue their own selfish gain. After all, the development of the AI industry costs trillions of dollars annually (an industry not foreign to Bonacolta), while millions of people worldwide suffer in poverty and starvation.

Bonacolta may have left Google, but she is still a high-earning tech star, as an online coach and guru to entrepreneurs, and for leading a club for LinkedIn “thought leaders.”

She may not be as mercenary as that sounds, however, as she does believe in learning from the past. She notices the irony that we may have “gotten every convenience imaginable” in the 21st century, but that we now need to revisit our grandparents’ simpler times. Why?  Because our lives now are “more anxious, distracted and exhausted than ever.”

She writes of her grandparents’ lives, “What if [they] had it right all along? . . . They started their mornings with the newspaper and coffee—not scrolling through social media. They cooked Sunday dinners from scratch. They walked to the store and actually talked to their neighbours along the way.”

We fritter away our conscious minds on “Social media notifications. Breaking news alerts. Stock prices. Dating app swipes”—all for a “flood” of dopamine that our brains are not genetically wired to handle, in the first place.

She observes: “The happiest people I know have figured out what our grandparents knew instinctively: offline is the new luxury.” I’d suggest instead that living “offline is the new sanity” and ethics, too.

Bonacolta recommends “seven old-fashioned habits” to improve our lives, even as we morally try to refuse the waste that can come from some of middle- and upper-class life.

Which of these habits work for you?

(1)   “Start your day with paper not screens”:

Keep a book by your bed, so you can read at least 10 pages each morning, before you look at your phone. (Try charging your phone in another room, so you don’t wake up to it.)

Bonacolta writes that our grandparents knew, if unconsciously, that “the first hour of your morning impacts your mindset for the rest of the day. Your brain will thank you.”

(2)   Practice making “ordinary dinners” once per week: 

She recommends buying a cookbook that genuinely interests you. Then, “every Sunday for the next month, cook one new meal from it. . . . You’ll be surprised by how much you enjoy the process of creating something new with your hands.”

If you live in a busy household with adult careers plus children to care for, how about trying to cook a “new” dinner, once per month? And use that as a break from the “old” dinners you’ve (and I’ve) been rotating for years.

(3)   Keep a “free library” at home:

Bonacolta recommends that you buy extra copies of a couple of your favourite books, if your budget allows for it. Then, when friends visit, you can share a copy with them (and they, in turn, may do so, with you).

She writes: “Books are meant to be shared, not just displayed on a shelf.”

(4)   Keep a “little things” list to observe life’s goodness:

In a small (e.g. dollar-store) notebook, jot down one good thing that happens every day, before you fall asleep. Examples she includes are “a nice email from a client,” a “delicious meal” you ate,  some “hilarious” humour that arose.

Then, “re-read the whole list on New Year’s Eve. . . . You’ll be shocked by how many beautiful moments you would have forgotten otherwise.”

(5)   Take a “white-space walk”:

Once per week, Bonacolta recommends taking a “20-minute walk with no phone, no music, no podcast. Just you and your thoughts.”

This teaches us that “boredom isn’t the enemy.” On the contrary, when you feel bored, your best ideas develop: “They need a little white space.”

(6)   Have some “vinyl nights”:

Bonacolta suggests that we listen to an entire album of a favourite singer or band, “from start to finish.” (I suggest trying this over the Christmas holiday season): She adds, “No skipping, no multi-tasking.  Just appreciating.” She argues that music can be an “event” and not just “background noise” to the rest of our busy days.

(7)   Take “1-minute voice messages”:

Finally, she urges us to send a voicemail or “voice memo” to let family and friends know you’re thinking of them. I would add, to remind them that you love them!

This should not be a text or social media message. “A voice memo lets them hear the warmth in your tone.”

While telephones were invented to connect us with loved ones far away, smartphones now “disconnect us from the people closest to us.” We might try using them for their fundamental use–as telephones!

And if we’re tempted (as I am) to dismiss Bonacolta for her apparent privilege, consider her closing words:

“There are seven weeks left until New Year’s Eve. Try one of these habits every week for the next seven weeks . . . . And for these final months of 2025, give yourself permission to slow down a little. To spend less time on screens. To stop multitasking all the time. To do fewer things that matter more, with the people who matter most.”

The message of calm and peace that can transpire might be the best gift you could offer loved ones and yourself, in this chaotic world.

And now it’s your turn: How do you live more purposefully or meaningfully, in these troubled times?

How can we outdo the aggression and greed that threaten to overtake our world? Please share your thoughts; I’d be grateful to include them in a future issue.

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SHOP NEWS:

 

I remember that an old family friend who lived in British Columbia at least 30 years ago, would answer my letters that inquired about the health of himself and his young family.

One reply showed his trademark humour: “We’re all much as we were, maybe a little more so!”

The latter clause struck me as both hilarious and charming. So I now share a similar “status report” with you–here are some ways that I too am “a little more” than I was, last month! And how are you?

I am delighted that my long-term colleague and friend, writer Ashleigh Mattern, is ready to return to leading our writers’ group, “Saskatoon Freelancers’ Roundtable,” after the conclusion of her cancer treatment.

I’m very grateful to Ashleigh, as this will allow me to plunge back into teaching and editing, which sometimes conflict with our group meetings.

That said, I’ve greatly enjoyed exchanging conversation with our group over the past year, and look forward to future discussions about “favourite books,” for instance, and about a potential writers’ retreat at St. Peter’s Abbey, next autumn (2026).

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I’m glad to share this month that while my communications’ business sees me work with economic immigrants and internationally educated, second-language academics, I plan shortly to begin work with two native-speaking children, who face  basic literacy challenges, and who were referred to me through my faith community.

In the area of children’s literacy skills, I had a wonderful opportunity last summer (as I shared then) to work with a (native-speaking) grade nine student who needed some support with his writing skills.

He flourished in the several short weeks that we worked together and the process impressed upon me the importance of literacy tutoring, even or especially for native speakers, who are sometimes overlooked.

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As Saskatchewan teachers and parents have long told us, primary (and often secondary) school classrooms are bursting at the seams with students, some of whom have complex medical needs that require ongoing maintenance (e.g. neurodivergence, breathing tubes, allergy alerts, etc.).

Quiet and often shy students (whether they have medical needs or not) are not always sufficiently served by teachers and by Educational Assistants (EAs)—that is, if the class is fortunate enough even to have EAs.

These children sometimes fall through the cracks, and I’m grateful to teachers and EAs who identify these cases, so that they can receive literacy tutoring in caring environments, with teachers like me.

I enjoy children. But my many years as a graduate student in Southern Ontario, decades ago, trained me to teach adults (18+ years), as the body of undergraduate students whom I would serve.

So I owe special thanks to retired teacher, Sharon Wiseman, whose vast experience teaching literacy students from K-12, in the US and in Canada, has again become invaluable.

Sharon’s awareness of the stages of literacy development and of relevant early children’s literature is indispensable.

Thank you, Sharon, for instruction and guidance on phonemic awareness, which lays the foundation for the study of phonics.

Literacy tutoring of children under the age of 10, can be tremendously rewarding, but also challenging, across different cultures, class, gender and religious differences.

But I’m delighted to help children who may be struggling to “catch up” in their literacy skills.

There are always new “thank yous” to share and new entrepreneurs and businesses to promote. 

But this is a wrap for mid-November!

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ABOUT US:

Between 2011 and December 2018, Elizabeth Shih Communications chronicled the stories of B2B marketing and communications on the Prairies and across the country.

Effective January 1, 2019, I rebranded as “Storytelling Communications.”

I help economic immigrants and internationally trained, second-language academics to improve their spoken and written communication skills.

By doing so, I help economic immigrants to gain better jobs or larger contracts; and I assist second-language academics to secure promotions (such as tenure) more readily and quickly than if they worked alone, in isolation.

Interested in learning more? Please contact me through my CASL-compliant website (www.elizabethshih.com).

After I receive your message, I’ll be pleased to discuss projects with you!

Please visit my website for more information (www.storytellingcommunications.ca).

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Should Malaysian English speakers speak “local English” or “standard English?” Marianna Pascal weighs in

In a famous Toastmaster’s Speech Contest that garnered One Million views (2009), Corporate English Communication trainer, (Canadian-born) Marianna Pascal, asks whether Malaysia’s “local English” or “Standard English” should prevail?

Should Malaysians “embrace” local language or dialect as a vivid and colourful part of  their culture (“local English”)?  Or should they “replace” (and efface) their hybrid, combination dialects with “Standard English” (The King’s English)?

Pascal  observes that “linguistic habits are very difficult to break,” such as in the expression “get down [not “out”] from the car.” So efforts to impose “Standard English” above “local” adaptations of English  would be doomed to fail.

And the change of a single word can entirely alter the meaning of a “local” statement: “You put in fruit [in a blender] after you switch on!” (Which clause does “after” modify?)

Pascal advocates for hybrid, combinations of the local language with English– a both/and . . . not an either/or approach to using English.  She observes (as she further details in a TEDTalk from the same year), “how well somebody communicates in English actually has very little to their literacy level.”

Communication is about confidence, not feeling judged;  assertiveness and being willing to experiment; and freedom from being shy.

This approach is consistent with community-based teaching and learning.

If you’re an adult seeking “local English”  more than “standard English,”  please reach out to me.  I work with both forms of language and can support your learning journey!

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=local+english+or+standard+english