The Ins and Outs of ESL in Canada: How the Past Can Inform the Future
Bibliographic record
Abstract
For some people, nothing sounds duller than the word “history.” And yet history can be fascinating; it can afford us a chance to see the world through others’ eyes; in comparing historical events with the current state of affairs, we can sometimes perceive our realities in a new light. Landmarks in the history of English as a second language (ESL), including patterns of immigration, language policies, funding, curriculum choices, standards, and advocacy, are chronicled in this article. These issues are the lifeblood of our field and go back further than many people recognize. They are all influenced by personalities, ethics, and circumstances. In 1899, Frontier College started sending labourer-teachers to work camps, where they taught not only literacy but also ESL to immigrant workers in mines and on railroads. A century ago, handbooks were developed for instructors of “new Canadians.” Since those early days, Canada has developed the most comprehensive system of adult ESL training in the world, and has produced internationally recognized research on second language acquisition. Furthermore, ESL teachers created professional organizations at the provincial/territorial and national levels. Some of the developments of TESL Canada will be examined here. In looking back, we can see how far we have come, and also get some sense of where the future will take us.Pour certaines personnes, rien de plus assommant que le mot « histoire ». Et pourtant, l’histoire peut être un domaine fascinant qui nous offre la chance de voir le monde avec le regard des autres et peut-être envisager l’état actuel des choses sous un angle nouveau en comparant notre réalité aux évènements historiques. Cet article décrit des jalons de l’histoire de l’anglais comme langue seconde (ALS), y compris les tendances en immigration, les politiques linguistiques, le financement, les choix de programmes, les normes et les revendications. Ces enjeux repré- sentent des éléments essentiels de notre domaine et ils remontent plus loin que plusieurs personnes imaginent. Ils ont tous été marqués par des personnages, des principes éthiques et des circonstances. En 1899, le Collège Frontière a commencé à envoyer des ouvriers-enseignants dans les chantiers pour enseigner la lecture et l’écriture ainsi que l’ALS aux travailleurs immigrants œuvrant dans les mines et pour le chemin de fer. On a développé, il y a un siècle, des guides pour ceux qui enseignaient aux « nouveaux Canadiens ». Depuis lors, le Canada a développé le système le plus complet au monde visant la formation en ALS pour adultes et a produit de la recherche sur l’acquisition des langues secondes qui est reconnue à l’échelle internationale. De plus, les enseignants d’ALS ont créé des organisations professionnelles aux niveaux provincial, territorial et national. Nous nous pencherons sur certains éléments de l’évolution de TESL Canada. En jetant un coup d’œil vers l’arrière, nous constatons la distance parcourue et nous nous faisons une idée de ce que l’avenir nous réserve.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.005 | 0.012 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.010 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.049 | 0.019 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.019 | 0.009 |
| Open science | 0.003 | 0.009 |
| Research integrity | 0.003 | 0.009 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.009 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".