BC TEAL 2026 Annual Conference

This session presents a strength‑based approach to fostering flourishing in adult ESL classrooms. It draws on theoretical insights and related scholarship on personality‑driven motivation and interpersonal strengths (Maccoby, 2018; Porter, 1976; Scudder, 2021) combined with insights from Cultural Intelligence scholarship (Livermore, 2024), to help educators understand how differing motivational tendencies, in both learners and teachers, can come to bear on classroom interaction, engagement, and the experience of safety.
The objectives of the session are to: (1) increase educators’ awareness of the diverse personality‑based strengths adult ESL learners bring; (2) explore how a teacher’s own motivational patterns and preferred strengths influence classroom dynamics, expectations, and interpretations of learner behaviour; (3) demonstrate how instructional choices can create flourishing conditions across personality types; and (4) equip participants with strategies for recognizing and responding when normal, healthy strengths may unintentionally trigger discomfort or conflict in others.
A brief theoretical synopsis highlights how individuals tend to act from core motivational patterns, including tendencies to be people‑focused, task‑focused, process‑focused, or flexibility‑focused, and how these tendencies come to bear on communication preferences, decision-making, and stress responses. In adult ESL classrooms, this awareness supports asset‑oriented pedagogy by reducing misinterpretation, enhancing relational understanding, and strengthening psychological safety to support flourishing of both learners and teachers.
Workshop activities include analyzing classroom vignettes to identify motivational value patterns and strengths being expressed, and role‑playing teacher responses that promote well-being or de‑escalate emerging tension. Participants will reflect not only on learner strengths, but also on their own natural tendencies, exploring how their “default strengths” influence pacing, feedback style, tolerance for ambiguity, and conflict response. This offers an opportunity to view their own role in the interactional system of the classroom from a strengths-informed perspective and to recognize opportunities for intentional pedagogical choices aligned with a strengths-informed perspective of learner needs.