BC TEAL 2026 Annual Conference

The primary objective of this session to initiate a meaningful conversation about how academic support units can continue to build effective, student-centered services at a time when there’s shrinking staff capacity and growing workloads. The session focuses on the creation of Learning Commons – central hub of academic support and its connection with Writing Centre and English Studies faculty to develop academic resources that support the core skills – Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. 
The discussion will also focus on the challenges faced with student engagement and active collaboration with faculty members. It also sheds light on to the manner academic support units as well as faculty members are at the front lines of taking care of students well-being in high stressful situations. 

Avenue, the national LMS used in LINC and ESL programs, plays a central role in supporting newcomer learning across Canada. Many learners arrive with limited digital skills, and instructors—while trained to teach on Avenue—often need additional support managing the platform, navigating classroom tools, or troubleshooting activities. Increasingly, organizations rely on digital navigators or digital assistants to offer this support. These staff members act as trusted guides, helping clients to access devices and develop digital confidence, and helping instructors to make full use of their online learning environment.
Until now, digital assistants had only one training option: to take the same Avenue course that was designed for teachers. The new Avenue Digital Assistant Course was developed to offer targeted, support‑oriented skills with training tailored specifically to those who assist learners and instructors rather than teach classes.
This workshop introduces the ADAC course and highlights how it equips digital assistants with essential competencies, including navigating user roles, supporting classroom setup, using the Avenue Course Builder, managing tools like the calendar and gradebook, working with learning activities (forums, quizzes, H5P, etc.), and guiding instructors in using the ePortfolio. The course emphasizes practical, hands‑on learning through videos, help‑file links, and interactive simulations.
Participants in this workshop will first discuss which common issues digital assistants are typically asked to address, then explore some sections of the ADAC course and discover how this role-specific training can strengthen the support system in your organization. Attendees will leave with clear insight into how the course works, how it benefits organizations, and how to request access for their own digital support staff.
This workshop is ideal for anyone seeking scalable, effective training that boosts organizational capacity and improves digital experiences for both instructors and newcomers.

This session introduces a new Avenue management tool designed to streamline administrative workflows for Service Provider managers and teachers. Through a structured live demonstration, participants will see how the tool supports efficient, accurate, and centralized program management within a single system.


The session objectives are to demonstrate how the tool simplifies administration and to highlight how improved data organization strengthens oversight, accountability, and reporting. Participants will observe practical workflows, including creating teacher accounts, registering them for Avenue training, configuring funders, assigning funding to specific courses or learners, and managing enrolments across programs. The session will also demonstrate how these relationships are reflected automatically in real-time reporting outputs.


A key focus is reducing duplication and manual tracking. By centralizing course, learner, and funding data, the tool improves record integrity and simplifies communication between instructors, administrators, funders, and leadership teams. Participants will see how built-in reports can be generated for internal monitoring, compliance requirements, and external reporting to funders and management.


The session will include a demonstration of best practices to enhance the overall Avenue experience. This will cover practical strategies for managing course size and content structure, optimizing student enrolments, and improving system speed and performance. These operational practices complement the new tools and help ensure sustainable, scalable program delivery.


Grounded in current digital administration practices in adult language training, this session responds directly to the need for transparent, auditable, and efficient program management. By the end of the session, participants will understand how the new Avenue tools and accompanying best practices can reduce administrative burden, improve data quality, and support informed decision-making.

With no funding for CLB 5 and up, there is a huge gap of services, especially for those newcomers who want to attend post-secondary institutions. Where can they practice their English, so they don’t lose the progress they made in LINC 1 to 4?  As in the past, faith communities continue to address the needs of newcomers with informal English language classes, conversation circles and social events. A sense of belonging and social connection is vital for newcomers, and ethnic faith communities have been filling that need. This interactive session will inform participants about English language services in Baha’i, Christian, Islam, Jehovah Witness and Mormon communities in metro-Vancouver.  The handout will also provide info about the free public library offerings.   
 
Some of the program facilitators have been offering newcomer language and social services for more than 30 years.  Research about Christian programs conducted in 2013 showed that 50% of the programs did not have any faith components or content (Kristjansson, 2018). Currently, a much smaller percentage of the 40+ programs in metro-Vancouver offer Bible content, which is often optional.  Preliminary survey research on the other faith groups shows a higher percentage of spiritual life content.     


Participants need not be a believer of any faith group to express the advantages and disadvantages of English classes hosted in places of worship.  The focus is on the wide variety of program structures and elements for program development. Current statistics may not be complete since programs start and close because of human resources, makeup of the newcomers in their neighborhood, etc.  However, participants will leave with a sense of the depth and width of the programs offered through places of worship. They (especially unemployed teachers) may even be inspired to start their own community-based program.  (292) words)


Reference  (41 words) 
Kristjánsson, C. (2018). Church-sponsored ESL in western Canada: Grassroots expressions of social and spiritual practice. In M. S. Wong & A. Mahboob (Eds.), Spirituality & language teaching: Religious explorations of teacher identity, pedagogy, context, and content. (pp. 172–194). Multilingual Matters.
Description for Program booklet
You need not belong to a faith community to discuss and learn how faith-based communities have served the social and linguistic needs of newcomers in metro-Vancouver.  (26 words)