ESL Teacher Professional Organizations
B.C. TEAL (B.C. Teachers of English as an Additional Language)
http://www.bcteal.org
TESL CANADA (Teaching English as a Second Language in Canada) is a national organization dedicated to advancing communication and coordinating awareness of issues for those concerned with English as a second language and English skills development.
http://www.teslcanada.ca
TESOL(Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages)
http://www.tesol.org/s_tesol/index.asp
BECOME A LOCAL ESL CHAPTER!!!
IT’S EASIER THAN YOU THINK!
If your district does not have a LSA (Local Specialist Association), perhaps it is time to form one. There are a number of advantages to becoming a chapter. First, it provides your district with a direct link to the PSA executive, so you get all the news about what your PSA is working on. Second, your chapter will be asked about your concerns before each executive meeting, and these are brought up for discussion/action. Third, your president will have an expenses-paid trip to the Vision Day in May, to help develop the goals of the ESL PSA for the coming year. Fourth, the PSA will give your chapter $100.00 to help defray costs of meetings and/or to use for the development of a project of your choice.
So how do you go about forming a chapter?
- Have a meeting of the ESL teachers from your district. In order to form a
chapter, most of your members must also be members of the PSA. - Elect some form of executive. This can be whatever you want, as long as
the ESL PSA has one main person with whom to maintain contact. - Write a letter to our president, Mrs. Marlene Eccles, <meccles@shaw.ca> telling her that you wish to become a chapter, and provide her with the names, addresses, e-mails, FAX #’s, etc. of your executive members. Inform your local teachers' union that you have formed an ESL PSA local chapter.
Note: The BCTF Guidebook states that: Local chapters "shall be responsible to the PSA about provincial matters and to the local teachers' union on local matters. Responsibility to the local union on local matters is mandatory."
(p.50) - At some point, ratify a constitution. The easiest way is to use the
PSA Guidebook developed by the BCTF; it is available through any executive member and is also on the BCTF website.
That’s it! Why not join the districts that have already formed LSA’s? Becoming a chapter is easy and it’s a great way to be more in touch with what is happening in ESL around the province.
Address for the BCTF PSA Guidebook: http://bctf.ca/uploadedFiles/PSAs/PSA_Guidebook/PSAGuideBook.pdf;
Forming a local chapter is on pp. 50-54.
