BC TEAL 2025 Annual Conference

Did you know that the average English learner only speaks for about 90 seconds per class? Ellii Polls will get your students talking! In this demo, we'll show you how teachers in 10,000+ schools around the world are using Ellii's latest interactive feature to engage learners with relevant topics and maximize speaking time in the classroom.

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is formally described as “the study of English for the purpose of participating in higher education” (Bruce, 2011, p. 6) and is designed to prepare students for the linguistic and cultural challenges of studying in English at post-secondary institutions.  Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy (1968) aims to empower students by transforming oppressive contexts and fostering critical thinking.
There are key parallels between EAP and critical pedagogy. Both fields emphasize the importance of decoding and encoding academic language and concepts, situating learning within students' real-life contexts, integrating theory and practice (praxis), and developing students' critical thinking skills. These shared goals underscore the potential for critical pedagogy to enhance EAP instruction.
However, there are also significant challenges and tensions. EAP is often viewed as a remedial service rather than a legitimate academic discipline 
 (Haque, 2007; MacDonald, 2016), which undermines its potential. Additionally, many EAP instructors face job insecurity, which hampers their ability to fully engage with critical pedagogy. The economic focus of international education, which often prioritizes the financial benefits of international students over their educational and cultural contributions, further complicates the integration of critical pedagogy into EAP.
Despite these challenges, promising initiatives align with critical pedagogy. These include inclusion-oriented applied linguistics, which addresses linguistic barriers to student inclusion, and language-informed critical pedagogy, which examines language use in various contexts to promote critical thinking and social justice.
I advocate for greater recognition of the contributions of EAP and its instructors and call for a more integrated approach to critical pedagogy within EAP.   I discuss implications to policy and practice to enhance the educational experience of international students and realize the full potential of both fields. 

Academic coaching is valuable in improving student achievement and retention, both by increasing GPA and allowing students to feel a sense of belongingness in university, which provides students with the confidence and skill sets necessary for academic success. However, in the current evolving academic landscape, students have quickly adapted to Generative AI for their study, while teachers are frustrated by their misuse of such tools. With limited university resources and time provided for both teachers and students, it seems inevitable that innovative digital technology will be integrated with teaching and coaching contexts to not only meet the demand of second language learners’ academic support effectively but also help them develop self-directed learning ability. This panel aims to discuss the challenges of academic coaching amid the active use of Generative AI among 1^st-year international undergraduates in a university transition program and share how to ensure that L2 learners use it appropriately without experiencing impediments to their language development. After introducing the context of the University 1 (First-year) program and a 100-university-level academic writing course, mandatory for the L2 learners, panelists will demonstrate strategies for implementing AI-powered digital tools in a coaching context to foster independent study skills, support vocabulary development, and ensure if they effectively use suggestions offered by Grammarly to develop long-term writing improvement. Lastly, they will share how these strategies can mitigate the temptation to use AI tools in ways that sabotage student learning and achievement.

The Douglas College TESL program recently developed a new practicum model that effectively addresses previous challenges in training future EAL teachers while creating new opportunities for underserved EAL learners in the community. Presenters will first provide an overview of the challenges they faced in the post-COVID world, including limited sponsor teacher support from partner schools, as well as their own institutional policy constraints. They will then outline the steps taken to create the new in-house practicum model and explain its beneficial effects on both the TESL program and community EAL learners. 
This initiative, which is based on the Teaching and Learning Cycle (TLC) framework (Derewianka & Jones, 2016), has proven effective for TESL students and their learning as it is based on scaffolding and reinforced by classroom instruction. The benefits for EAL learners, however, seem to extend beyond language learning, impacting their current and future identities and creating lasting effects on their lives. The presenters will share their classroom experience and explain the reasons behind these effects, highlighting a somewhat unexpected finding from this initiative: a significant imbalance between the demand for EAL instruction and the available options for learners. 
The experience underscores the importance of finding creative ways to better serve the EAL community during the time they are most vulnerable, despite difficulties posed by institutional and governmental regulations. It emphasizes the need for teacher training and language teaching providers to come together in support of students. Attendees will leave the session with ideas on how this can be achieved. 
Reference 
Derewianka, B., & Jones, P. (2016). Teaching Language in Context (2nd ed.). Oxford University  
Press Australia & New Zealand.