world of words; summer session; issue 71

World of Words“The English Language Program’s student magazine; a compilation of the summer ses-

sion’s highlights, students’ opinions and other features ”

Issue 71, Summer 2010

Special 15th Anniversary Issue

World of Words

Ins

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is I

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SPECIAL: Flip through this issue to the sections titles “15 years of WOW” to see how the WOW has changed over the past 15

Personal Journeys and Reflections • The Restless Boy • Why …? • An unforgettable Learning Experience • What are your future aspirations? ◊ Profile: Anna Ngo, From ELP CA to ELP Instructor

Opinion Section • A New Kind of Horse Power:

Therapeutic Riding • Jobless Youth • Alcohol, Drugs, and Dictionar-

ies • Survey: Attitudes about

Smoking • Is It Impossible to Live Without Taxes? • Wealth • What Does Boring Mean? • Runny Nose Theory • Paparazzi • Why Do I Love It? • Graphology • What’s Your Learning Style?

Life in Canada • Class Trip: Toronto Islands • Life in Canada • Amazing Day in Toronto • The Fantastic Journey around Toronto • The Cost of TTC • TTC Subway Service • Toronto: Graffiti Art • Voluntary works in Canada (Marathon) • My Summer in Toronto • Experiencing Toronto

ELP Clubs, Events & Programs • Guitar Club • Tennis Club • Soccer Superstars • Softball Club: Go Eager Beavers! • Summer Camping • Get the Big Picture ! • My Progress in the ELP Comprehensive English Program • How have you changed as a Language Learner over the Past 5 Weeks? • How I Have Changed During the 6 Weeks

Policing • Compare Policing in Toronto and South Korea (Seoul) • Policemen’s speech • Imagine What It’s Like to be a Police Officer

Foreign Affairs • I love Yumeoibito. I love to volunteer • Transportation Problem in Iran • Green Energy Car • Overpopulation in China • Toronto & Japan • I am Japanese

More • The 2010 ELP Photo Contest • Introducing Your CAs • A Collaborative Class Article: Ramadan • Eid Al-fitr • Opportunity for Improving Specialized Business English • YOU: the ELP Student.

Feature: 15 Years of WoW • EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Superstar ELP Alumni BK Yoon • Feature: ELP Staff & Instructors Reflect on their time at ELP

Issue 71, September 2010

Dear all, I would like to welcome new and returning students, instructors and staff to this spe-cial issue celebrating the 15th anniversary of WoW! Summer sessions are our busiest and most eventful of the year, welcoming diverse groups of students from around the world to a variety of courses, programs, cultural events and activities. Our cultural assistants have had their hands full ensuring students have the fullest experience and utmost fun in the city while at studying at the ELP. More-over, activities in the various clubs have been in full swing this summer. The photo excursions with the photo club have pro-duced beautiful shots of the city as seen through the students camera lens (make sure to view the photo contest winners in-side this issue). The weather this summer provided the best atmosphere for soccer players to shine as part of the soccer club. As we promised in the past issue, in this is-sue we are featuring ELP staff and alumni, as well as a special highlight on the ELP pro-gram by students. Instructors and staff members reflect on being a part of the pro-gram for many years now and students share their opinion on various courses of-

fered at the ELP. In this issue, our student writers cover seri-ous issues, such as policing, over population and transportation. Many students reflect on their time in Toronto, at the program and with newly acquired friends and mentors. On behalf of everyone at the ELP program, I wish you the best of luck in all your future endeavors. Congratulations to all of you who are continuing their studies in university. As the program grows bigger, we are trying to maintain an extensive alumni network, please share your success stories with us so you can get a chance to be featured in our upcoming issues! Finally, I would like to thank all of you who help make this publication a continuous suc-cess by continuously contributing and en-couraging students to contribute as well. We hope you enjoy this special issue of WoW, All the best, Sherry Yuan Hunter Executive Director, English Language Pro-gram School of Continuing Studies University of Toronto

It has been a wonderful and exciting session as always, thanks to all the students, staff and instructors who have made it possible. And from all the staff at ELP, we wish you all the best!

ELP DIRECTOR’S MESSAGE

September 2010

World of Words

World of Words

INTR

OD

UC

ING

YO

UR

CA

s

CA is Cultural Assistant. Why? Because Cultural Assistants introduce you to Canadian culture by way of the numerous activities that are planned every month through the ELP program. But wait, that’s not it! CAs also organize and lead various in-house activities. The artistically and musi-cally inclined Shirley strums away with students during Guitar Club meetings and at Geordie’s Jam. Captain Anna tirelessly trains students for the ELP’s very own Beavers softball team. Toni’s newly introduced Tennis Club has been a certain hit with students this summer. Tope knew how to take full advantage of the sum-mer and the diverse group of students at ELP by reviving the Soccer Club (especially with the FIFA 2010 in full wing). Tuesi is the new kid on the block, but he and Darren have done a stunning job at managing the Photo Club and teaching students camera tricks to get the most out of their city excursions.

Top right: Bill and Steve with a student, al mem-bers of the Tennis Club.

Bottom right: Bill with students tobogganing. Opposite page: Before

ELP’s Geordie’s Jam, Steve and Bill were part

of an ELP band!

Did you know? Before there were CAs, instructors used to manage student events and activities themselves!


Shirley: "My name is Shirley. I'm a gradu-ate from UofT in Radiation Therapy. I love to travel and learn about different parts of the world. My interests include music (come join the Guitar Club!), art, friends, shopping, and working at ELP. My favourite ELP activities are summer and winter camping :D ! What I love most about Toronto is its multiculturalism."

Anna: Where do I begin? I was born and raised in Toronto. I finished my undergraduate studies at the University of Toronto with a dou-ble major in Psychology and Human Resource Management in 2009. I have been working as a CA since October 2008. So I’ve been a CA for a while. Last September, I began full-time studies in the TESOL program at Woodsworth College. This past summer, I had the opportunity to teach Coffee Chat and a 3 week Speaking Eng-lish course and I loved it! I had so many great experiences this summer and I am thankful for that. But at the present moment, I am still the Coffee Chat instructor and a CA. I like living in Toronto, I love it’s cultural diversity. However, I do think that I’ve been here for too long and it’s time for me to explore the world. I would love to teach English abroad in South Korea, Hong Kong or Japan. Maybe I will see you there. ;)

Toni: My name is Toni and I have been a cul-tural assistant at ELP for a year. It has been really great working in an environment where I get to meet other students from all around the globe. I was born in the Philippines, moved to Canada when I was 5, and am now a proud Ca-nadian. As a geography student at U of T I have learned that Toronto is an especially great place to be because of it’s diversity. I am entering my second year of university and through all my ex-ploration in first year I found that a Geography major best suits me. I love trying new foods, learning about different countries, and think of my self as an explorer. My dream is to travel to at least every continent in my lifetime and my ultimate goal is to become a cartographer. ELP is an excellent place to start exploring both for myself and students learning English!

Tope: HEEEEELLLLLOOOO! My name is Tope. I am friendly and you can experience this for yourself. Simply call for my attention when you see me and I'll try to get to know you. If I ever forget your name, don't worry I'll never for-get your face. I can say hello in many languages and you can test this by asking me to say hello in your language when you run into me. I also enjoy assisting students so If you have any is-sues you need help with, ask me when you run into me. Thanks for taking the time to read about me =)

Darren: Darren just graduated from OCAD

university with a degree in photography. It is only appropriate then that he is in charge of the English Language Program’s photo club. Join him on city explorations to take photos and en-ter them into ELP’s photo contest for a chance to win prizes!

Tuesi: My name is Tue Si and I'm from France but my background is Vietnamese so I am a French-Asian! I moved to Canada when I was 19 and fell in love with Toronto so I've lived here ever since. These have been my first cou-ple of months here at ELP and it has been a really great experience for me. As a former ELP student it has been an interesting change of view to be leading students on many events of which I have been to myself as a student learn-ing English. I always enjoy meeting new stu-dents and hope the best for everyone in their studies and stay in Toronto.

World of Words

Life In Canada By: Yukiko Sakae

This was my first visit to Canada. Life in Canada was dif-ferent from the image I had thought. I felt very comfortable be-cause of the variety of culture in Toronto, so there was no preju-dice. Toronto was a very interesting city. Before the program started, I was looking forward to going to the school and I ex-pected talking with foreigners because I wanted to make many

foreign friends. However, after the program started, I was depressed because of my English abilities; my classmates were much more confident speaking English. I was very intimidated. But, I thought enjoying talking was the most important thing, so I got over my fears and talked to many people positively. Now I have good memories. The activities such as coffee chat, baseball game and Niagara Falls especially made me happy. I experienced many things and made new friends. Our CA’s, Tue-si and Toni, made our activities fun. I appreciate them so much. I will surely come to Toronto again someday. Toronto has become my favor-ite city. Thank you everyone!

AMAZING DAY IN TORONTO by Manon Tremblay

Superwoman was in Toronto. She represents the power, force, determination and

respect of Quebec. Is she really strong?

Right: Ironic gap between the sculpture and Latin quotation from J.Cesar : “Veni, Vidi, Vici”. However this sculpture symbolize a kind of human spirit of conquest; new territories, knowledge, technology, business expansion, per-haps new space on uni-verse…

Left: An Asian sculpture is in front of a European background


Two women sit on the opposite side, I think that they want to say something to each other. “How long did we need sit.”

This is the Old City Hall close to modern buildings.

Top right: The wing symbol-izes the liberty that lets

people throw away their troubles.

And it makes people relax and comfortable.

Middle right: Toronto in In-dian means “a meeting

place” I think this sculpture is really a symbol of it.

(by Andrea’s Class)

The Fantastic Journey Around Toronto

World of Words

The ELP was proud

to welcome the

Schenzhen Group from

China:

One student shares her story

with WoW

It’s a small story of unity, diversity and generosity —

shared and written by out 9

people.

Everyone plays an indispen-sable role in our group. The productivity of our heads, hands is the sources of all our happiness. Unforgettable memory. Forever friendship! What I want to say: Owing a million heartfelt thank-you’s for the support, the praise by people around me. It’s with profound respect and warm gratitude that I got the great opportunity to enter To-ronto University School of Continuing Study Program.

(Left) The Maid of the Mist: take a breathtaking view from the base of Niag-ara Falls on the exhilarat-ing boat tour.


by Linda Cong Zong

◊ Casa Loma provides self guided digital audio tours. ◊ Sir Henry’s financial misfortune forced him to abandon his

castle home. ◊ My teacher Tuesi is teaching me photography; he has

spent 4 years learning photography. ◊ In class group discussion.

4. Do you think people should pay for their extra luggage or bicycle?

5. Do you think there should be discount for students and eld-erly?

World of Words

The following process paragraphs explain the process this class followed when they developed surveys on issues of concern to

Canadians. by Ayman Al-Sharief, Wenfeng (Andy) Zhao, Abdulla Al-Awi, Xin Tong Chen

Paragraph by Xin Tong Chen

1.Do you think the TTC has a rea-sonable price?

2.If no, how much will be suitable do you think?

3. Do you think the people should be pay ticket for their pets?

1

3

2

5

4

The cost of TTC

This survey is about the cost of TTC conducted by my group (Ayman, Andy, Abudulla, Xin Tong). In or-der to achieve a complete report, we have to make sufficient preparation, investigation and data analy-sis. Before the survey, we needed to choose the topic and created five questions with my group mates. Af-ter that, we decided to do the survey at the St. George Station because we thought it was a suitable place to collect the answers. Each person in our

group asked 10 people for each question and re-corded the answers. At the end of the survey, we got 50 answers for each question. After we asked ques-tions we calculated the statistics. We also used a chart to display the data. Finally, we discussed the data to make a conclusion. After we completed these three stages, we had a satisfied data about the price of TTC.


By Maki Okazaki, Amani Al Sam, Jiao Wang, Meeaad Aleissa Paragraph by Meeaad Aleissa

Q5Hiring more cleaning staff

Adding more subway lines

Making the train run 24 hoursTTC staff must be more friendly to customerNo ideas/anther

TTC provides us good service

Q4) What is your scale point about the service from 1 – 5?

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

1 Awful 2 3 Good 4 5 Great

Q4

Q5) Do you have an opinion for the TTC subway to improve their service?

Q1

Twice a day

Once a day

More than tw ice a day

Less than once a day

Q2

Yes

No

Q1) How often do you use the subway?

Questions about the TTC subway service

Q2) Are you satisfied with the TTC subway service?

Q3 Best

Cleaning

Number of lines

Suitable time

Customer servie

Q3 Worst

Cleaning

Number of lines

Suitable t ime

Customer serv ie

Q3) Which service is the best/worst for you?

Knowing people’s opinion by approaching them is a great way to recognize their thoughts and personality. From this point, Maki, Amani, Jiao and I as a group, conducted a survey in order to show people’s opinion about TTC Subway services. We asked forty individuals some questions about this issue and to know if they were contented or not. First of all, we combined together because of two reasons. First, all of us are interested in this subject. Second, the topic is a sensitive issue that touches the community. Then we created five questions, and considered many kinds of them such as multi-choice, yes-no and scale point to make it easy and fast when we talked to people. After that, we went to St.George Street and separated. Everyone asked ten

people our questions. During this activity I chose the people who were smiling and friendly. Some of them were satisfied with the services and they wanted to talk more, but others were not. After I organized my information, and also discussed it with the group, we analyzed the data to make a chart for the result with percentages. In conclusion, this survey helps us a little bit to know if people are happy with subway services.

The following process para-graphs explain the process this class followed when they

developed surveys on issues of concern to Canadians.

TTC Subway Service

World of Words

Guitar Club

by David Kim (Yooshik)

Do you expect something that changes your life? Do you want to make new friends?, or do you want to be crazy? You can find it there, Guitar Club.

Guitar is the easiest and the most popular instru-ment in the world, as you know. Many people make music with a guitar and it makes people productive. It’s creative, productive, and amazing.

Unexpected thing is that guitar can connect one person to another person. When you meet someone you have never met before, the guitar can be a good story to share with each other. You can talk about guitar, music, favorite songs, etc.

Interaction, that is the main code of guitar. Its six stings get along together and make beautiful sounds like our social lives. As each string needs other strings, we need new friends. Also, even if you don’t know anything about guitar, don’ worry, don’t be shy, a n d d o n ’ t h e s i t a t e .

Try. Just try. It can be your precious experience. Especially for me, my life changed so much after I learned the guitar. I learned it when I was in the mili-tary service. At that time, I experienced many things with the guitar. For example, I did a small concert, I joined a small band, and so on.

Ability is not important. Learning the guitar just needs practice again and again. Also, in the club, there are good teachers for you.

R u ready? Don’t think too much. Just rush into the club and enjoy it! Everything!


by Yoshiyuki Sugimoto Tennis is my favourite sport and I often play it in Japan. I really wanted to play Tennis in Canada as well, however when I came to Canada I could not find any players to play tennis with. I then later dis-covered the ELP tennis club in which I participate every week. I think that being a member of the ELP tennis club has been a wonderful experience for me be-cause not only do I enjoy playing tennis but I also got to meet people from various countries such as Ko-

rea, Taiwan, France, Japan, and Canada! In addition it is a good opportunity to speak English outside of the class! (right: Yoshiyuki playing Tennis)

A few words from Captain Toni: Tennis is a great sport whether it be just for a friendly rally or a competitive match. The tennis club brings students together from the English language program that are interested in learning to play tennis or have been playing tennis for years. It is a great opportunity to meet other students and learn and improve your skills with the help of the more experi-enced athletes. The tennis club is open to anyone interested, it is a good way to keep healthy during your English studies, and can add fun to your weekly routine.

The tennis club meets to play tennis on the outdoor courts located in Ramsden Park at Rosedale. I have personally been playing for tennis for several months now and have picked the game up fairly quickly with the help of many students and other cultural assis-tants. I have been very lucky to have shared many laughs with current and former members and hold many memories. I always look for-ward to meeting new members!

Tennis Club

World of Words

Summer feels like it’s gone but my experiences this summer, will forever remain timeless. There are too many words I could use to describe the sum-mer of 2010 at the English Language Pro-gram such as fun, dynamic, thrilling but times hectic. Activities were plenty with just a few being: the World Cup Party, the numerous Barbeques, the various club events (Soccer, Softball, Photo and Gui-tar) and other cultural events. In all the events that took place, the most impor-tant facet was YOU: the ELP student. In your unique way you have left a lifelong impression on the school which pictures and shaky camera clips will never adequately convey. Some – like the Montenegrins and Kobe Shinwa ar-rived as a group, arriving suddenly, like a gust of wind that leaves soon after. With both groups, the periods we spent together were short and I wish we could have spent more. Others bravely travelled to Toronto by alone without the safety net of immediate friends. However upon arriving in Toronto, you all commendably set up shop in Toronto, dishing de-lights from the foreign lands you call home and si-multaneously immersed yourselves in the vibrant city of Toronto, leaving behind timeless memories. Memories were made on the soccer field: where often than naught, our group of international English students always managed to send local soc-cer players of the field by putting the ball in the op-posing team’s net. On a particular occasion, I re-member as we opposing teams off in quick succes-sion almost at 5 minute intervals. While it is true that our team’s success on the field owed to the advan-tage and comfort we shared amongst each other and the opposing local teams we faced were randomly chosen, our soccer players do deserve credit. You deserve credit because you were all of exemplary character, cooperating and playing like a true team despite the different language backgrounds you all shared. The successes we constructed were due to not only to our ability to communicate but our will-ingness to work with each other.

Also evident during the World cup was the fluid mix of cultures. We watched games together and while we sometimes supported opposing teams, we always celebrated with smiles. The FIFA World Cup party was no different. We ate, laughed and watched with intensity an exhilarating final FIFA match and jointly celebrated Spain’s victory over the Netherlands. Working at the ELP this summer has been exciting and fun packed. Most importantly, the times I have shared with you all has been both special and a tremendous learning opportunity. You the ELP stu-dent have given me joy and made work a great ex-perience. Some people envy the job I have and this is because of you – the great ELP students I have met. With that I must say, I am glad to have met YOU: the ELP Student. Hopefully our paths cross once again.

by Tope Salami

YOU: the ELP Student.


SUMMER ESCAPADES

World of Words

Summer Camping by Risa Nishiyama

I went three-days camping from July 30th to August 1st with about 30 ELP students and CAs. It was really exciting trip. Although we canceled most of 1st day activities because of late arriving, we really enjoyed many activities. On 2nd day, we did sailing, tubing (like jet skiing), tennis, and swing. Es-pecially, swing was so exciting. It is hard to explain what swing is. In short I just swung from very high place. You must like it if you like roller coasters. On 3rd day, we enjoyed climbing, canoeing, kayaking, and hockey. Also at free time, we could play volleyball or many other sports. At night, both 1st and 2nd day, we made a fire. We heated and ate marshmallows, talked with each other, and sang songs of each country. Through three days, I made new friends, and got friendlier with old friends. It was the most important thing. I really enjoyed the camping thanks to my friends. It became my wonderful memory of life in Canada."

Issue 71, September 2010 15 Years of W

OW

In 2006, ELP wished to be part of Soccer fever by creating ELP’s own soccer team. This year, we did the same. With the Soccer Club being one of this Summer’s most popular activities for students (no doubt inspired by the FIFA 2010) , we take a look back at the “1st Annual UofT ELP Soccer Clas-sic”, followed by a look at this summer’s Soccer superstar players!

World of Words

Soccer Superstar Players

Name: Mustafa Country: Turkey

Position: Forward What do you enjoy about soccer?

Soccer is a really fun sport! What did you enjoy about Toronto?

I really enjoyed Tope, he is a good friend. Name: Fadhil Country: Libya Position: Midfielder What do you enjoy about soccer? Soccer is healthy and fun. If I’m in a bad mood I like to play soccer. In Libya I play in a league but after my knee injury I stopped playing for a year so it is really great that I get a chance to play in To-ronto. What did you enjoy about Toronto? Toronto is a beautiful City

Name: Shu Country: Japan

Position: Midfielder What do you enjoy about soccer?

It is exciting, refreshing, and healthy. What did you enjoy about Toronto?

I really like the nature, the environment, the weather, and Toni.

Name: Mehmet Country: Turkey Position: Forward What do you enjoy about soccer? It is lots of fun and I have made many new friends. What did you enjoy about Toronto? Different countries’ foods in Toronto are really great. I really like the CN tower, the beach and U of T!

Name: Jaeuk Country: South Korea

Position: Midfielder What do you enjoy about soccer?

Without soccer my life is boring. What did you enjoy about Toronto?

The people in Toronto are so kind! Name: Yoshiki Country: Japan Position: Defender What do you enjoy about soccer? Soccer is a team sport. Playing and being part of a team is a great feeling. What did you enjoy about Toronto? I like the people in Toronto

Name: Woo-Seong

Country: South Korea Position: Midfielder

What do you enjoy about soccer? I really love watching soccer and playing it in Uni-

versity. What did you enjoy about Toronto?

The people in Toronto are kind and clean.


Name: Hiroto Country: Japan Position: Midfielder What do you enjoy about soccer? Playing soccer is fun and I started playing in high school and I’ve always enjoyed it since. What did you enjoy about Toronto? The big beautiful parks, the big campus at U of T, and the beautiful buildings.

Name: Thierry

Country: France Position: Left Wing

What do you enjoy about soccer? I like playing with people from different countries, the atmosphere is really fun, it’s not too competi-

tive, and it’s the best activity for me. What did you enjoy about Toronto?

Toronto is very diverse and multicultural. Name: Diego Country: Colombia Position: Striker What do you enjoy about soccer? Soccer is my life! What did you enjoy about Toronto? It is a multicultural city and there is lots of freedom here. I love the security; you can go anywhere you want to at any time.

Name: Faris

Country: Saudi Arabia Position: Left Midfielder

What do you enjoy about soccer? It is my favourite sport ever since I was a child.

What did you enjoy about Toronto? The good weather!

Name: IIij Country: Montenegro Position: Left Wing What do you enjoy about soccer? Soccer is a fast paced game with physical contact. What did you enjoy about Toronto? I like how I can play soccer anytime and how U of T offers pick-up soccer games.

Name: Jovan

Country: Montenegro Position: Defender

What do you enjoy about soccer? Soccer is a good game that requires a big pitch

which means lots of running. It is also a very physi-cal game.

What did you enjoy about Toronto? This is a big beautiful city that is multicultural and

there are many polite people. Name: Hitomi Country: Japan Position: Defender What do you enjoy about soccer? I enjoy seeing people’s surprised faces when they see me, a girl, playing soccer. What did you enjoy about Toronto? I enjoyed eating poutine.

World of Words

WHY DO I LOVE IT?

by Hitomi Kaido I've never thought about a reason. However, the styles, the sound, the smell, the heat... all of it really arouse me to enthusiasm. Hi, my name is Hitomi. I'm a twenty one-year-old Japanese girl. I'm studying English in Toronto. My hobbies are drawing pictures, traveling abroad and playing soccer... no no no... actually soccer is my life!! One day, my father gave me a soccer ball when I was ten years old. It was a start in my soccer life. I became a member of the boy's soccer club at an elementary school. There was no girl except me, but I could run faster than any other boy. I always hated to lose to boys. They were my ri-vals but also my best friends. They've never discriminated against me. We used to kick the ball, dash to it and sweat all over whenever it was rainy or windy, from summer morning to winter evening. On other occasions, we used to have a barbecue or camp out. We did things together. This made us great team. Advancing to the Tokyo competition last year in this club, was the proudest moment for us. Inciden-tally, you may be surprised the captain was girl - me!! What-ever they were, these people were precious people to me as learnt to play soccer together. I was going to quit playing soccer before junior high school because I'm a girl!! But I kept playing soccer with boys. In high school, I was a member of the boy's soc-

cer club yet again. Besides that, I belonged to the girl's soc-cer team. It was new for me to exercise with girls or elders. This was the very world I needed if I was to keep playing soccer in the future. I became a hard working player. Before class, I went to the early morning practice. After all class, I went to the evening practice. And then, I went to the night practice for the girl's team. My schedule on the weekend was just filled with games. My mother worried about me. While she sometimes tried to take my soccer ball away from me, she also made me rice balls, the source of my energy. At last, I became soccer player of Tokyo. This was my third team and the most fantastic team. I met a famous head coach and top players of Tokyo selected from different teams. I was serious. I trusted I was going to be a profes-sional player. I lived only for soccer and I could do anything for soccer, getting up early morning, watching my diet and dismissing pressures to be girlish. I remember the time I found my name in the start-ing line-up for a national competition. It was great source of happiness for me to put on a blue uniform. Both the flush of victory and the chagrin of defeat after hard training became our new goal. These were the first precious people to teach me the valuable lesson of believing in myself. However, suddenly I had to give up my dream. When I was in the second year at high school, I broke my ankle during an important game. When I saw my snapped nerve and my doctor's said it would take two years to re-cover, I was shocked. I was really shocked. I couldn't imag-ine I was going to stop playing soccer for that long. It was the first setback of my life. I lost energy. I lost weight. I thought I was going to lose everything but there was only one thing I never lost - my friends. They woke me up, took me along with them to their practice and gave me lots of encouragement. They inspired me to stay positive and to do the prescribed rehabilitation activities. I returned to the girl's soccer team one and half year later. I was rehabilitated and worked hard as a team mate whether it was: delivering water bottles, recording scores or supporting players on the bench. I thought differently now than then when I was not top player any more. After discarding my poor pride, I could become a better player. I really enjoyed playing soccer and spending time with my team mates. We got in one car to go for soccer practice, after which we would go for dinner to-gether then talk all night. We got matching clothes, sang the same songs and laugh until we cried. I am always with them. I will be always with them. They were the first precious soc-cer friend and we shall remain friends forever. Today and in Canada, soccer gives me a lot of friends. When I walk on the street holding my soccer ball, people greet me. When I go to the pub, I enjoy watching soc-cer games with local supporters. When I go to the soccer field, I can spend time with a soccer family even if I am homesick. All the people who I've met through soccer re-main a treasure. Soccer brings us together. Perhaps through soccer, wars can end people around the world are brought together. I am going to play soccer until the end of my life. Thanks soccer! Thank you Tope!


By Jay Ha

Speaking of softball, first thing that pops into my head is “We suck.” In this summer, we just won one game out of eight games. Everybody knows that Eager Beavers sucks! But who cares? When we play softball, we laugh a lot even though we lose with huge scores. For us winning is not that important, as long as we enjoy our moment. There is always Anna, captain of softball. She always makes sure everybody who plays softball en-joys their moment. Every time after we played a game, she was exhausted because she cared too much about everybody getting a chance to play the game. Because of her, we had great games in this summer. There are students as well. We did our best even though some students never played before or don’t play very well. When one player does an excellent job after he/she missed many chances, it’s another joyful mo-ment for Eager Beavers. Everybody applauds the player and cheers him/her up. If you want to make new friends, join the game. Playing sports is the perfect opportunity to make new friends. After playing sports, friends become closer than before they play. You don’t have to worry about how you play. We don’t play to win but for fun. Just give it a shot!

Captain Anna’s Thank You: Sadly our season has ended, but I just want to thank everyone for being a part of this team. You guys are AWESOME. Without you, softball would not have been as fun as it was. Thank you for always showing up to play, even though we lost all but one game. I hope all of you had a lot of fun this summer. It truly isn’t about whether we win or lose, it’s about how we play the game. You guys were all great team members. Thank you for a great season!

Go Eager Beavers!

World of Words

Hey. I’m not a samurai or geisha, and I don’t live in a tem-ple and wear a kimono everyday. And I don’t know Taro and Hanako from Japan. I have a Prime Minister, not a President. I speak Japanese and I use not only kanji but also hiragana, katakana, so they’re different from Chinese. Japan is a peaceful country because Japan don’t have a military. Japan is the most developed country in Asia. Many people all over the world use Japanese electronics. And the best part of Asia. I am Japanese… Thank you.

Hi, I’m not Samurai or a Ninja, and I don’t wear Kimono or eat Sushi every day. I don’t know every Japanese, but I’m certain they’re really, really polite. I have a emperor, not a king. I use Kanji not Chinese, and I use more two alphabet. I believe in peacekeeping, not policing: I don’t forget momory of WWI. Mt. Fuji is a truly proud and noble mountain.

I’m not samurai or ninjya. I don’t eat SUSHI every day. I can’t KAMEHAMEHA! I have an emperor but it’s just symbol of Japanese history. I believe in peacekeeping, not nuclear weapons, not army. I have beautiful Mt. Fuji. I can enjoy four seasons. Ja-pan is the first nation of Judo. Japan is the second biggest country of economy. My name is Ryotaro. I am Japanese! I’m Japanese. We don’t eat Sushi everyday. We don’t all live in To-kyo. There are no samurai in Japan now. Foreigner says “Cheery blossom is great and beautiful!” but in fact, just drinking. Not all Japanese like manga. Japanese men are kind, for example they had Yuka on their back. They are nice guy! Japanese women are also nice.

A Kimono is a chothes. Japanese clogs are shoes, And Japanese is spoken only in Japan. Japan is the most advanced nation in Asia. Japanese history is so long. And the best country in the world! I am Japanese!

Speaking English Class Project:

I. AM. JAPANESE.


In January, we have Coming of Age day. In February, we have ___! In March, we have ____________ I have sushi (raw fish on the rice)! Sashimi (raw fish). I have Tempura. WE have Gold Temple, Silver Temple. These are in Kyoto!! We love Kanji! WE have Mt. Fuji, cherry blossom WE ARE JAPANESE Hi! I’m not a Ninja, a Samurai. I don’t wear a katana anymore. We have great technology, for example, cars, cameras, PCs. We can see them all over the world! We are usually on time, and Japanese clerks are always polite to customers. We are considerate to others. So, I am Japanese!

World of Words

I.

AM.

Japanese.

Contributors: Aya Fukui, Minami Michioka, Kana Mizutani, Chihiro Mori, Daisuke Mii, Tomonori Sugiyama, Lei Wang, Junko Okani, Naoya Okada, Tomoya Sakaguchi, Shinya Yokoyama, Kana Ogura

Hey! I don't own a sword and I'm not a Samurai...or a Ninja In fact I have never seen a Samurai or a Ninja My country is made up of many islands, NOT one island And yes, Japanese is a small country and isolated, but we do have relations with other countries and we read and we travel All Japanese don't have the same character We are not all shy We are human beings Not all Japanese people know how to make sushi I eat rice AND bread And there is no California roll in Japan I have a Prime Minister, not a President And I speak Japanese, not Chinese Not every Japanese knows everything about new technology We invented post-it, not only 'cutting-edge' stuff Yes, many Japanese people are very healthy, but my father is fat And he ISN'T a sumo wrestler I know about Christmas and I often hold a party with friends But I don't wear a kimono to the party...or to work In fact, I rarely wear a kimono because it's our traditional dress Japan is in the east of Asia! The best nation of baseball and animation I AM Japanese!!


When we travel, we learn a lot about the host country we are visiting, but we also learn about ourselves. If you had to write a rant like this for your country and culture, what would you say? Do you feel people often have misconceptions about your country? Write in the same way about your coun-try and submit it to the magazine and we will publish it in the upcoming issue! Check it out the original version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRI-A3vakVg

15 Years of W

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Why did we write this … First we watched a TV commer-cial called “I AM Canadian”…. In April 2000, Molson Canadian in-troduced an advertising cam-paign that starred a man named Joe: an "average Canadian". In the TV commercial, Joe is stand-ing in a movie theatre, with a cin-ema screen behind him showing different images relating to Cana-dian culture. Joe gives a speech about what is it to be a Canadian and what it is not to be a Cana-dian. At the end, Joe shouts “I am Canadian”. The ad was very famous because it was different and creative, but it also made people think about and talk about stereotypes and their own na-tional identities.

World of Words

Eid Al-fitr

by Abdulrahman Almutawaa

Eid Al-fitr is a Muslim celebration after Ramadan. Muslims from all over the world celebrate this impor-tant holiday. It is a rest for the Muslims after the fast-ing in Ramadan. Eid brings happiness to the Muslim people. They buy some food for the poor during the last days of Ramadan to make sure everyone has a warm meal and can participate in the celebration. This charity is known as sadagaht alfitr. The celebra-tion lasts 3 days. Muslims gather in the morning of the first day to perform the Eid Al-fitr prayer. Usually they visit their family after the prayer. In addition, they give the children gifts. On the second and third days they do the same thing, visiting relatives and

giving presents to the children. Furthermore, all Mus-lims wear new clothes during these special days as they socialise with their family. To sum up, Eid Al-fitr is a really nice celebration which refreshes the Mus-lims’ spirit.

A Collaborative Class Article: Ramadan The following process paragraphs explain the process this class followed when they developed surveys on issues of concern to Canadians.

Survey by Zahra Alhamza, Bu-dour Almalik, Areej Albukhari, Mariam Alkhawaja Article by Mariam Alkhawaja

One of the most important universal skills for each student is doing a survey. Although, each sur-vey has a specific topic, almost all of them is done in the same way. In fact, a survey has three basic

stages: before survey, during survey and after sur-vey.

In the first stage, a survey topic must be cho-sen. For example, when I did my survey, I chose Ramadan to be my survey topic since it is a current event. Moreover, it is related to Muslims only. There-fore, it was a chance for me to know how much To-rontonians know about Ramadan. After selecting a topic, a group is made. Actually, my group has stu-dents who were interested in the same topic (Ramadan). The last step in this stage is making questions. My group and I chose five simple ques-tions which were easy for most people to answer them as well as questions that give us a good conclu-sion about Ramadan in Torontonians’ minds.

During survey stage, we chose a place to find people. Our location was near the Royal Ontario Mu-seum. On that day, there were a long line of people who came to visit the museum, so it was an excellent location for the survey. After that, I chose people who looked friendly to ask them questions. Most people collaborated and enjoyed doing the survey. In deed, each student in the group asks 10 people the five questions, so the total was 40 people shared in the survey.


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After the survey, we had to collect data. In other words, collect the answers from group members into a single piece of paper. Followed by analyzing data which means con-vert data into conclusion. For instance, the first question in the survey was “Do you know about Ramadan?”. 30 people said “Yes” while 10 peo-ple said “No”. As a consequences, we can con-clude that 90% of Torontonians know about

Ramadan; however, 10% don’t know about Ramadan. Finally, we made charts because the easiest way to read the 40 surveyed is through charts. Surely, we used computer in this step.

To conclude, a survey is an important activity for students. In addition, it is very im-portant for them to follow these stages in the same order to enjoy doing their surveys.

World of Words

It is impossible to live without taxes

by Andrea Villareal Since human beings began to exchange goods and services, taxes have existed. They serve to contrib-ute to the social welfare through the monetary con-tribution toward the general budget state. Every government, without exception, gets part of the budget from taxes, and those taxes are col-lected from people who live in the country and enjoy the benefit and welfare provided by the govern-ment. Therefore, every citizen in every country has to pay taxes, no matter what products or services they purchase or how much they earn. There are many kinds of taxes; for example, prop-erty tax, goods and service tax, business tax, per-sonal income tax, foreign income tax, etc. A gov-ernment can tax its citizens directly and it can tax the property they own. Some countries, such as Brazil, Japan and Canada have high and many taxes because they prefer to give a good standard of liv-ing to their inhabitants. People always complain about taxes, especially when there aren’t economic results. However, peo-ple have to look also on the other side. Most coun-tries imposing heavy taxation, like Switzerland and Canada, have a better welfare system than others. There is welfare in Canada, and residents of Can-ada have to pay higher taxes to different levels of

government such us, federal, provincial and munici-pal, than any other country. When taxes are paid, government can find a way to balance budget. Canadian government provides unemployment in-surance to all Canadians. This is very important for every one, especially when people lose jobs and need unemployment benefits to live on. In Canada, taxes are high but this is compensated with high levels of safety, health, and education of the coun-try. However, high taxes can cause tax evasions as people find ways of not paying taxes. In developing countries, the situation is completely different. There the problem of taxes is more seri-ous for two reasons. First, not all of the population can pay taxes because of the high poverty levels. So the the middle and upper class has to subsidize these people. Moreover, those citizens who pay taxes don’t see an improvement in their economic system of health, education or security because of corruption. I believe that each country has to find a tax balance to ensure the population a high standard of living and, at the same time, allow people to generate more incomes. Taxes are necessary in every econ-omy. The key is to find a balance between efficiency and equity where the majority of the society feel satisfied with the amount of taxes they pay and what they receive in exchange.

Wealth by Yi Hang Ji

Due to the development of society, people’s

understanding about wealth is changing. I think there are three main ideas about what can be called wealth.

First of all, you have to admit money is a kind of wealth. The discussion of money never stops, but the truth is money can really bring happiness to some people. In fact, money is always a mark of wealth. If you become rich, you will get many things you want and realize your desires. Therefore, you must admit money is wealth.

Furthermore, family and friends are also an-other type of wealth. People are lonely sometimes. We need family and friends to share our happiness

and pain. They help us grow and move forward in life. I believe family and friends are precious wealth in our life.

Finally, I know that dilemmas and disasters are likewise a sort of wealth. Of course, we never like to meet them. However, there are always many inevi-table problems in life. We cannot evade them and we must face them. These disasters make us learn how to live and understand what life is. Meanwhile, we also become strong, brave and mature. For me, I feel the dilemmas and disasters are the greatest wealth of my life.

To summarize, the definition of wealth varies because everyone has a different viewpoint about wealth.


Graphology Everyone has distinct handwriting; some peo-ple have neat writing while others have messy. One of the reasons for having different handwriting is that everyone has a different personality. Because the nervous system has the authority over hand-writing style, handwriting reflects the personalities of the writers. Graphology is the study or analysis of personality through handwriting. Today, graphology is being used in many distinct fields. In criminology, many detectives benefit from using graphology to identify criminals and some investigating centers, such as the FBI, hire graph-ologists to help investigate or solve cases. In medi-cine, some doctors use graphology in medical diag-noses. Moreover, big companies have been using graphologists to hire appropriate employees for specific jobs. In addition, using graphologists is common in politics to analyze the ideas of the en-emy and whether they are telling the truth. Also, graphology could help teachers understand the needs of students. Graphology looks at handwriting as a drawing, map, or picture but not as writing. The spaces be-tween words are social relationships. For example, narrow spaces between words mean a need for rela-tionships or the desire to make friends; in contrast, wide spaces indicate no desire to make more friends. In addition, narrow spaces between lines reflect someone who likes action, unlike wide spaces which show a tendency to understand the

big picture. The letters actually speak and give more infor-mation than what we imagine. For example the let-ter "t" indicates self-esteem. Drawing the "t" bar on the top means high self-esteem; in contrast, a low "t" bar indicates low self-esteem. The dot on the top of letter "i" can give information about the way of thinking or focusing. If the dot is placed to the left it means tend to think more about previous events and the past. In comparison, placing the dot to the right indicates planning and thinking about the fu-ture, while placing the dot exactly in the center and top of the "i" means focusing on the present. Addi-tionally, each single letter reflects specific features. When analyzing people’s personalities based on their writing there are necessary conditions. The handwriting must be on white, clean, unlined paper and you must compare more than two lines of hand-writing. Look for the repetition of writing style, words and letter shape. Moreover, before judging people, we should consider the situation of the writer and all the circumstances which could affect the handwriting. In conclusion, graphology is an interesting and important study that could improve people's under-standing of themselves, increase awareness of other’s needs and demands and boost the level of communication. Now, do you want to analyze your handwriting?

What’s your

learning style? Learning styles are the preferred ways by which people learn. There are three learning styles: visual, auditory and kinesthetic. Visual styles belong to people who prefer to learn visually by seeing or reading. In contrast, auditory learners are people who like to receive new information and instructions through listening and speaking. In addition, kines-thetic learners can be classified as people who are dependent on touch or motion to learn. Moreover, each type has distinctive characteristics that can be identified by observation. First of all, each type fre-quently uses specific words that reflect their type. For example, visual learners always use words such

as "see,” "look" and "clear;" in contrast, the auditory learner uses "listen," "hear" and "tell,” while kines-thetic learners use words such as "feel", "touch" and "grasp." Also, the three styles have different vocal effects. For instance, the voice of a kinesthetic person is lower and deeper in comparison to the visual person whose voice pitch and tone are high and speech is fast. However, the person whose voice and tone is a medium level is auditory. More-over, eye accessing cues are different in each type. For example, the visual learner always looks up when remembering or imagining, but the kines-thetic usually looks down. The person who looks left and right constantly while speaking is auditory. In conclusion, everyone has a different learning style; therefore, identifying learning style could help not only to improve the rate of learning but also to en-hance our understanding of ourselves and improve our communication with others.

by Ebthal Alshabib

In the following two articles, Ebthal writes about graphology and the individuality of learning styles.

World of Words

“The

Restless

Boy” by Philipp Chung Hi guys, let me tell you something about me! My name is Philipp. I’m an 18 year old high school student from Germany. I was born and bred in Germany but my origin is Chinese- more precisely Canton-ese. I love to play basketball, you could say basketball is my religion. One of my other passions is play-ing the guitar. Now let me tell you why I made this journey. Back in the winter of 2009 I had really bad depression.

It was horrible. I even went to a therapist but that did not help. So my mum suggested that I take a break for half a year. I had a really hard time because there were so many things that got me down, like the first basketball game that we lost, the intense pressure at school and unfulfilled love with a

girl I really like. The problem is that I’m not very skilled in math and I was in school for electrical engineering. So I agreed with my mum’s sug-gestion and hoped to live a better life. At that time I was so depressed I separated myself from friends and stayed at home lying around in bed. I didn’t have the de-sire to do something joyful. One of the worst things was that I quit basketball and let my team down. I just lost the passion to play ball or should I say to live my life. Anyway during that time I did-n’t know what I wanted. I was like an empty shell, like a blind person without a cane. So my big voyage started in Febru-ary. I flew directly from my home city, Stuttgart, to Atlanta Georgia, where I stayed at my aunt’s house. There I have 3 cousins; one who’s two years younger than I and who also was born and bred in Ger-many. The other two cousins are older than I. One is a few months older and the other one is already working. In Atlanta I went to my cousin’s high school for 3 months where I gradually started to gain hope to make it through another year. After three months in Atlanta I was starting to get better but wasn’t I really happy then. On the 16th of May I arrived at the Toronto Airport to meet my parents and grandma but I actually didn’t know what to expect from Canada or the ELP which I attended the next day on my 18th Birthday. The first day I got a pretty nice impression from the U of T and the people there. I celebrated my birthday with some Korean guys Minsoo, Jaeho and Dehi even though I didn’t know them at all; they invited me for a cake. The next few weeks went pretty fast. I met a lot of new friends and improved my English speaking. I just want to mention some friends who have grown dear

to me. One of them is Jae he’s a student at U of T and went to the same class as me. He is a pretty handsome, smart guy who’s like an older brother to me. Having him around was always fun! And of course all the CA’s, Anna, Shirley, Toni, Marianna, Darren, 2AC and Tope. I love you guys, I’ll never for-get you! During this journey I didn’t only improved my English I also learned a lot about friendship, the courage to face life and most importantly I learned a lot about myself and now, I know who I really am and what I want. I want to be happy. In the future I want to become an English teacher in Korea. One of my biggest dreams is to graduate high school in Toronto and study in Canada. But I didn’t just fall in love with this beautiful country - I also fell in love with a girl. You can achieve anything you can imagine if you believe in yourself! Here are some favourite song’s I want to share with you guys!

Playlist: 1. Eminem – Not Afraid 2. Kimura Takuya – Ha-jimete-no Chu (My First Kiss) 3. Sum 41 – So Long Good-bye


WHY…? This is the question right now! Maybe you know me already from the last essay I wrote, if not, my name is Philipp and I’m an 18 year old high school student from Germany. This may 2010 I came to Canada to study English at U of T. I took a comprehensive course for four weeks and I really, really enjoyed it, because I had a great teacher and a lot of nice class-mates. And now I’m thinking about graduating high school in Toronto. It’s a big decision in my life, be-cause it can change everything, and because I will live in a new country, big city, have new friends and a lot more. It’s not that I have a problem adapting to all these things and it’s not I don’t miss my family in Germany, especially my parents and of course my friends. A bigger issue is the money, because you have to pay money even for a public school in Can-ada. I know I lived my whole life in Germany and

German is my native tongue, but I think graduating won’t be a problem for me, because in my opinion, my English is good enough to stick it out. The rea-son why I really want to study in an English speaking country is, I want to become an English teacher and my last high school I attended was not meant to be for me, because it was a school for electrical engi-neering, and I’m not mathematically inclined! And Studying in a for-eign country would be a good chance to get a lot of life experience. So guys, if you want to help me, just write me an e-mail to me and tell me what you think about this awkward situation! What would you do?? Email: [email protected]

World of Words

by Juliana Acosta Jaramillo When I was young, I wanted to be a vet-erinarian. I grew up thinking about that career until my last year in high school, when I had to make a choice about my major at university. During my child-hood I spent most of my time on a farm, riding horses and enjoying my time with different kinds of farm ani-mals. We must work hard In order to obtain our goals, aspirations and wishes; life doesn’t always give us what we have planned. However, disappoint-ments and difficult moments always happen for a reason. Even what we experience as failure often turns out for the good; periods of discouragement are not always bad for us. I made the decision to study Business Administration—a career choice very different from my ambi-tions of earlier years. I have always wished to be the best in what I do and to enjoy it as much as possible. As a business administrator or as a veterinar-ian, those ideals will always remain the same. No one can say for sure that they will be the best in the world, whether at university or in their career. However, In order to make our goals come true, we still have to believe in our capacity to fulfill our dreams. I have finished my university courses in Business Administration, and have found that this career is both challenging and appealing to me. I look forward to a successful and satisfy-ing career in this area. I have a strong feeling that I have made the right choice. Since 2007 I have been working for a company in Colombia. Year after year I have been learning how the business world works. When I think back on my time at school, I recall that my aspirations up until the age of fifteen didn’t change. I now ask myself, why have my plans changed since I started university? The answer is that I realize I am working to pursue my new and deepest wishes. I know that I am taking the right steps to build my future. Each day I move closer to achieving my ambitions. For the future, I see myself as being successful both as a person and as a business

leader—someone with the ability and intelli-gence to make the world a better place. How ELP helped you get closer to these as-pirations?

The ELP program has helped me to move closer to my aspirations in several ways: first, I learned how to communicate my ideas in English and to understand the way the lan-guage works in different contexts. Second, it helped me to reach a new viewpoint from which to see my own life, as well as the lives of so many new friends from all over the world. The most important thing is that I had the opportunity to exchange ideas, knowledge and experience with people from very different backgrounds. In the class, for example, we had people from diverse regions of the world: for example, the Middle East, Europe, South Amer-ica, and Asia. My courses let me experience the whole world in one small classroom! Thanks to this, I discovered our similarities and differ-ences: what people in general love and dislike, both personally and in the world at large. I also found out how competitive people from around the world can be! All of these experiences and insights have influenced in a positive way how I foresee a rich and satisfying future for myself. I will remember U of T as an excellent place to make new friends and learn English in a warm, professional, and supportive environment. W

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by Andrea Villarreal For most people thinking about the future is thinking about dreams or goals to accom-plish. This is be-cause the future is unknown and the only thing that eve-rybody can do is to seek a better reality in the days coming up. For me future is a matter of accom-plishing my aspira-tions and at this moment the most important aspiration is thinking about my pro-fessional future. I came to Toronto, specifically to U of T, driven by my desire to next year start a postgraduate study in Political Science. By the end of 2010 I will get my major in Economics. This degree along with my English knowledge will help me to fulfill this goal. I firmly believe that having short and long term goals is what makes this possible and above all achievable. I have these and I hope that circumstances will help me ac-complish this in time. The experience was so far better than I thought. Being in the ELP program was a good

opportu-nity in m a n y s e n s e s . First it h a d h e l p e d me to be confident with my E n g l i s h , e s p e -c i a l l y w i t h c o m m u -nicat ion s k i l l s such as

listening and speaking. Furthermore the les-sons were helpful and entertaining. Second, the abilities that I had got during the ELP program will be very useful to get closer to my future aspirations. Specially for continuing my postgraduate studies, in which I would put into practice the knowledge acquired in the classrooms. The extra-activities that I could take like work-shops, coffee chats and the volunteer program were also very helpful and they gave me the opportunity to make friends and learn more about Canadian culture. Studying in the ELP program has given me not only the opportunity to learn English but also I’ve learned about other cultures and met peo-ple from all over the world in a short time. That’s amazing! I met such good friends here that I’m sure I will keep their friendship forever. They made learning English fun; I shared with them good memories that I will always keep in my heart. Finally, I will just add that these three months in Canada have gone so fast and now that I’m going back to Ecuador I feel satisfied because I took as many opportunities as I could. I just want to thank ELP teachers and staff that helped me during the course and that made this experience something unforgettable.

An unforgettable learning experience.

World of Words

How I Have Changed During the 6 Weeks

Written by ShunFu Hu, a Com-prehensive English Student

As an English learner, I used to be extremely con-scious of grammar, which I mistook as one of the commandment that could not be violated -- cursed shalt thou be, dareth thou make grammar mistakes. During these six weeks, I realized that, just as people in North America revere liberty, the language spoken

by them share the same quality. Within scale of felic-ity, appropriateness and clarity, English can be as free as wind that cannot be lashed. It proceeds in its delightful pace as speakers have been adding variety to its vocabulary which has already been insuperably rich.

That is to say, ESL learners like me can speak with-out any fear of making wrong sentences, as should be more properly defined by “new” sentences. With this conclusion in mind, I now have become more daring to seize any chance in which I can practice what I have learnt. Also, I have become more flexible when dealing with confusion.

I’m free now.

Get the big picture !

by Maria Eugenia Alvarez Fernan-dez

During the last weeks attending the Compre-hensive English course, I have improved some skills, mainly the listening skills. I have applied the commandment “GET THE

BIG PICTURE”, so now when I watch TV or talk with people, I do not try to under-stand everything or translate the conver-sation, as I used to do at first when I ar-rived here.

To communicate with others is more impor-tant “GET THE BIG PICTURE” , in that way I can get the idea and participate in the conversation. If I do not know the meaning of a word and I think that it is really important, then I ask the meaning. At least, now I can distinguish the unknown words. I feel more confident every day, I “BELIEVE IN MYSELF”, and I am sure I can do it. I have been more than fifteen years without speak English and after two courses at U of T, I can have a conversation with Canadian people or make interview jobs and understand what they are asking or explaining me and have also a feedback. However, at first I was worried about make mistakes, but at this moment I realized that “MAKE MISTAKES WORKS FOR ME”, and I really appreci-ate when people let me know about the mistakes and teach me the proper words or grammar or others.

by Sheena Kuo I’ve had amazing progress. At first, I thought I had to improve my writing skills. However, it’s not like that. After taking these courses, I changed my mind. Speaking English is the most important part I have to improve on, especially pronunciation. I discovered that I can’t catch word stress and intonation of English. Therefore, when I speak English to native speakers, they often smile and look at me strangely because they are having diffi-culty understanding me. Through the Com-prehensive English course, I finally under-stood the reason why I had difficulty commu-nicating. Sandra, my core class teacher, gave me lot of practice opportunities to improve these skills. I also discovered another way to im-

prove my pronunciation. Using the audio arti-cles on the internet is the way. On the inter-net, I found some articles, and there are video files attached to the articles. You should fol-low along with the speaker and repeat it. I think it’s useful! The biggest difference from the courses here from those in my own country classes are the type of tasks including story-telling, movie reviews and one-minute speeches without saying “uh” and ”ah”. These tasks are challenging to those learning English as second language. Such difficult challenges! However, no pain no gain! It’s worth it for me to practice a lot. I learned about syllables, reduction and linking, making my speaking better. Besides speaking English, I also learned how to encourage my-self to speak in front of people. Everything in the ELP will be an unforgettable memory.

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How have you changed as a language learner over the past 5 weeks? by Chiaki Asakura After I came to Toronto, my impression to-ward English changed. Because when I stud-ied English in Japan, most of the students around me were Japanese, if I couldn’t ex-

press what I wanted to say clearly, they could understand it through other cues. However, in Toronto, especially in the ELP classes, if I can’t express my opinion clearly in English, it is difficult to communicate with others. So it is important for me to try to convey my feelings and my opinions in English with body language. I realized how useful body language can help me articu-late! I think this is one of the most meaning-ful discoveries in my Toronto life.

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World of Words

WHAT DOES BORING MEAN?

I´m a Colombian citizen. I´m from a country that everybody knows because of the bad things. When somebody tells me these negative things, I get really angry. But one day, I just started to think if maybe we de-serve that and I realized that perhaps we do. When I was listening to the police officer´s speech on Wednesday, I got the difference between Colombian police and Canadian police. It starts with the people who live in the country: Canada has in Colombia the stereotype to be a boring country but when you come here you know that it isn´t true. I found all the tranquility that everybody hopes to find here in Canada. The difference lies in that the police group of Toronto is not made up of those who are wearing the blue uniform. It has almost three million people working for a better city, for a better life. But, in other countries in South America like mine, we don´t care

about what´s going on with others. We fool-ishly think that if ‘I am good and my family is good, the other people can do whatever they want even if it is in front of me’. I remember once when I was robbed, some bad person assaulted me and stole my mo-bile, people who were watching the scene just passed around me and didn´t help me. Also, when I went to the police station they told me that they saw this man before and he may be at home, so I should just go home too. On the other hand, the punishments are so different. For example, in Canada, for thieves who are dedicated to robbing people on the streets, they could be 5 times at the police station because they were caught but they don´t have a real punishment so they know they are going to be ok and they think why not do it again? If there is something that I will miss from this country it is this: to feel safe every-where, and I hope one day I can be proud of the police service in my country just as To-rontonians should feel of proud of the To-ronto Police Service. by Diego Vitata Sandoval

by Jay Ha Runny nose is a significant meas-urement of how much you love someone. We can see this point well when a mother wipes her chil-dren’s runny nose with her bare hand. Let’s imagine, if one of your lovely friends has sticky and yellow runny nose, can you wipe his/her nose with your bare hand? Answer would be mostly “No.”

This time, imagine a p e r s o n you truly love. What if he/she gives you a bright smile like a sunrise to you without awareness that he/she has sticky and yellow runny nose? If you can’t wipe his/her runny nose, it means you don’t love him/her truly. R

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Paparazzi by Atsuko Hirano

Justin Timberlake, Lady Gaga, Katie Holmes, Lindsay Lohan, Tom Cruise, Kate Hudson, Bruce Willis are some of the people he has photographed. His photos appear in People, US Magazine, and New York Post. In Speaking English, we had several great guest speakers. One guy was John White, who is a paparazzi photographer. If you look in The Toronto Sun every Friday, you can see John’s pictures. He has two pages called “Hollywood North”. His pages are called Hol-lywood North because that is Toronto’s nickname (many famous Hollywood movies are made in To-ronto). John also has a website called TORONTO CELEBRITY AND EVENT BLOG (Tceb.ca). From his website, we can see who is in Toronto at the mo-ment. John works for an agency called INF and you can find his photographs in famous gossip maga-zines and websites. John told us many interesting things about his job. He told us about how he got into the business. He told us about what makes a shot worth more money (new Hollywood couples, a ‘story’ like Katie Holmes and her daughter strawberry picking, a famous star in his/her bathing suit on the beach). He told us that some stars were a little upset when he took their pic-tures. He told us about his difficult and funny adven-tures. Once he rented a car and rented a boat to get the first picture of a Hollywood couple – Kate Hud-son and her new boyfriend (his picture was proof that they were a couple). He told us about a couple of stars who pretend they don’t like to be photo-graphed, but really they want/need to have their pic-tures in the magazines. John believes he is success-ful because he tries to respect the people he photo-graphs. He knows that there are limits. Sometimes people invite him to their parties and if he receives an invitation, he knows that he cannot take a nega-tive picture at the party. Outside the party, anything is okay, but he should respect his invitation. It is easy to say negative things about the paparazzi. John admitted that the paparazzi do not have a positive reputation and he can understand why many people don’t like the paparazzi, but his

talking also made me think about the other side. The relationship between the stars and the paparazzi is ‘symbiotic’. Stars need paparazzi and paparazzi need stars (but we also need limits for this relation-ship to be successful). I think he has a point. Also, most people criticize the paparazzi, but they are still interested in the lives of the stars. It is hypocritical. If the paparazzi and the stars have no audi-ence, then pa-parazzi won’t exist. J o h n told us about his father’s advice: “Do something you love and you will have the best chance of s u c c e s s . ” John said he earns a good living as a pa-p a r a z z o (although the economy and reality TV have hurt his busi-ness a little), and he is defi-nitely doing something he loves. Thank you John!

Add John’s blog, Tceb (Toronto Celebrity and Events Blog) to your facebook or MySpace and stay caught up with the latest Toronto celebrity news:

Tceb.ca

World of Words

First of all, I would like to thank Marjatta Holt, Lisa Mor-gan and Jennifer Harris for giving me the opportunity to teach the three week Speaking English course. From this experience, I learned so much about teaching and about myself. I’ve been a CA since October 2008. The job isn’t for everyone, but I truly love this job! Tope and I always say that if we could do this forever, we would. There are so many reasons why I love being a CA. It’s so much fun! You get to meet students from all over the world. I can share my culture with them and, in return, I also get the opportunity to learn a thing or two about their culture. I also love being able to explore the city with the students. But most importantly, I love getting to know them. The students make working at ELP a pleasant and enjoyable experi-ence. I’ve made so many great friends and had so many great memories here. Being a CA is not a 9 to 5 job. You have to have a very flexible lifestyle to be a full-time CA. During the week, the day usually starts at around 12:30 for ticket selling and ends at an unknown time, it really depends on which activity you go on. On certain days, such as the first day of school and weekend trips, we have to be at ELP early in the morning. As a teacher, I think the hardest thing I had to adjust to was the working hours. For the last 5 years of my life, as a uni-versity student, my life was nowhere near routine. Being a teacher involved having a set schedule. I woke up at 6:30 every morning to get ready for work. I would arrive at school by 8:30 to photocopy and teach from 9 to 1. After class I would take a break and have lunch until 3. Then it would be time to prep and plan for the next day. Prepping and planning took up most of my time; I didn’t have time for anything else. This cycle repeated itself 5 days a week for 3 weeks. I had a class of 16 Japanese students from Kwansei Gakuin University, Kansai University and Nagoya University of Foreign Studies. My students were great and wonderful people. I remember waking up and feeling really tired, but when I stepped into the classroom and started teaching every morning, I felt more energetic. I believe that having a great group of students really helped with my energy level. It definitely made teaching more fun and enjoyable. It is such a wonderful and great feeling when students remember and use the words and phrases that I taught them, especially after a week has passed. Just today, a student

emailed me asking “What’s up?”, that made my day! Most of my students were really shy and quiet, but it made me feel happy when they said they didn’t understand something. I know it’s sounds strange to feel happy when someone says they don’t understand you, but I felt happy because I was able to create an environment that made them feel comfortable enough to say that they didn’t understand. I think this is important for any classroom and learning environment. The transition from CA to teacher was a little difficult. As a CA, I was always the approachable, happy and cheerful one. I felt that I was still this way when I was teaching but it was a little different. As a CA, everything is more casual and laid back. I talked to students as if they were my friends. However, as a teacher there’s a level of professionalism to being approach-able, happy and cheerful. I have to know where to draw the line in order for students to know who’s in charge. I wasn’t that much older than my students, and if you look at the class picture, I actually blend in. Appearing professional and mature is a chal-lenge I’m going to have to face for the next few years. It’s time to say goodbye to my “CA clothes and unofficial uniforms” and hello to my “teacher clothes”. I love the CAs, they are like my family and best friends. I’ve spent so much time with them for the past year and a half, at times, I did feel a little sad or lonely because I wasn’t with them anymore, and I didn’t have time for them. I am thankful that they were all very supportive of me. I was also glad to know that they missed me and welcomed me back with open arms and big hugs. I couldn’t ask for better friends. Many of the returning students whom I became friends with were also very supportive of my teaching position. They were very positive and provided me with support and encourage-ment. I am very thankful for that. I felt that by being a CA, I was able to talk to students to get their perspective about their lan-guage learning experience. I was able to learn about what they like and don’t like. I found this really helpful. All in all, from these experiences, I still love being a CA and I also love being a teacher. It has been a great summer. I can honestly say that working at ELP has changed my life. Who knew that when I began this job almost two years ago, that I would become an ESL teacher? Working at ELP were the best days of my life!

From being a CA to a Teacher by Anna Ngo


“This article is dedicated to our fabulous teacher Sandra”

TORONTO – From July 5th to August 13th, 2010, The Univer-sity of Toronto (U of T) held an English Language Program (ELP) for international stu-dents. Students could improve English skills in several focus classes. One of these focus classes was Business Eng-lish. The pur-pose of this class was for foreign stu-dents to im-prove English skills in busi-ness. After six weeks of train-ing, learners all enjoyed the class atmos-phere and achieved their academic goals. The students were from all around the world, of all ages and with varying lev-els of education. There were students from Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Tur-key as well as European coun-

tries such as Spain and Italy. Some learners were working professionals and others were in their early years of university.

The topics studied included news reports, resume writing, interview skills and effective Power-Point presentations.

There were many benefits in taking the Busi-ness Focus class. Mrs. Sandra Fusco, the instructor, said, “The class is a good way for foreign students to improve English skills and a small class is really a

great opportunity for students to have individualized help.” Mr. Jacky Choi, a student in the class, com-mented, “When we studied speaking skills, such as telephone or presentation skills, we practiced in small groups and shared information through coop-erative activities such as brainstorming.” The class

not only improved English skills but also improved communication skills among foreign students.

All learners completed the Business Focus class successfully. They were happy because they achieved their goals. On the other hand, they were upset since the fabulous Business Focus class ended. Common opinion was that they improved interview skills, learned more about formal and informal speaking in business settings and how to make ef-fective presentations. As a result, they increased their job opportunities. Furthermore, they got a chance to publish an article in WOW. Most impor-tantly, they networked by making friends from the most eastern to the most western parts of the world.

For more information about the Business English Focus class or the U of T ELP, visit: http://www.learn.utoronto.ca.

Above: Eugenia Alvarez Fernandez and Rozhin Amin discuss telephone skills in their Business English Focus class.

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World of Words

Transportation problem in Iran

by Sanaz Sahabi Tehran, the capital city of Iran, has recently be-come a gigantic parking lot. Street cars can move only as fast as pedestrians, and it takes a long time to travel in the city for a purpose. There are numer-ous traffic problems not only in Tehran, but also all over the country mainly because of a poor transpor-tation system. Moreover, gas and oil prices are con-sidered as an affordable expense, and big cities are much more crowded than the suburbs since life op-portunities considering jobs, education, and facilities are more easily found there. As a result, all our re-sources will soon be exhausted since such an over- consumption will increase the amount of oil waste. In addition, studies indicate that air pollution results in lung cancer and other dangerous diseases such as asthma, gastro-intestinal infection, and other types of cancers. Then, as air pollution stems from car ex-haust and other factors, thousands of cars con-verged in the city will affect the atmosphere and en-vironment. The most commonly proposed solutions to this problem are developing better life conditions in the suburbs, increasing fuel prices, and developing

a better transportation system.

The first solution, developing the suburbs, is possible to do in a number of ways. The government can transfer factories, businesses, and universities on a reasonable scale to these areas, encouraging people to move from cities. This method is efficient in the long term; while it decreases the amount of personal aggression either because of air and noise pollution or for wasting time in traffic, it also helps the suburbs’ economy. However, this idea’s success is conditional since it is hard to convince adoles-cents to change their life styles. The second practical solution is to develop a transportation system appro-priate in size and quality. Although this answer may cost more money than other solutions, it would help the government to save money in other ways in the future as repairing transit facilities and increasing them is a long-term investment. In addition, people who prefer traveling by public transportation can access destinations easier than before; besides, they can save money spent on parking . The third and best idea is to increase oil and gas prices to push people to use more public transportation and bicycles. Such methods would lead to more energy savings. However the plan’s triumph depends on the better public transportation services while the total cost would be also economical compared with driv-ing personal vehicles. In short, if the government solves the problem in this way, the consequences will be a peaceful, and pure atmosphere with less violence in cities.

by Andrew (Jun Lin) Wu

In recent years the Green energy car has been gaining in popularity at an amazing rate. It seems that a lot of countries have invested money researching and developing the future Green energy car. The Green energy car will play an undeniably important role in the future. Those who welcome the Green energy car have several reasons. First, the Green energy car would not pollute the environment while the tra-ditional energy car makes the world dirty and costs millions of dollars in gas every year. Be-sides, traditional energy like oil cannot be recy-cled; therefore, if we do not develop our Green energy car, the transportation system will break down very soon. In addition, the efficiency of the common cars is very low, so it will also waste a lot of oil and expedite more environmental de-

struction. In addition, p e o p l e s p e a k highly of a Green en-ergy car. It is not only e n v i r o n -m e n t a l l y f r i e n d l y but also economical. Everyone knows that the world’s oil price is very high and oil will become more ex-pensive. Also, if you buy a Green energy car, you will get some rebate money from the govern-ment. Considering these reasons, we can easily see that buying a green energy car is better than buying a traditional energy car. G

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It has been estimated that thousand of years ago, there were fewer than 400 million people on the earth. Today, the population of the world amounts to 5,000 million. Three percent of this fig-ure is the population of China. The Former Soviet Union wanted to attack China with nuclear weapons in the 1960s, and the Chinese people were afraid of genocide; as a result, at that time, the government encouraged people to have children. Now the popu-lation is becoming a serious issue which all the Chi-nese people are facing today. This issue brings a lot of problems. For example, parents do not have enough time and energy to give each of their chil-dren a good education if a family has more than one child. Some people also experience pressure and difficulty finding jobs because one job may have more than ten workers competing for it. The effects of over-population are like chains; for instance, the two kinds of people who are mentioned above will create some social problems because they are un-educated, and they have no money to support their families. These kinds of people may start to commit robbery or beg on the street, and many little chil-dren may become beggars with their parents. The Chinese government is trying to find a good solution to fix this problem, like family planning, a policy

where one family is only allowed to have one child. The problem is some pregnant women go to the countryside to elude the government inspection. They are not aware of the seriousness of this issue. Family planning is a practical solution to this problem, and it is the only one. However, the gov-ernment should strengthen the management of this system, and the inspections of pregnancies should be across-the-board and precise. At the same time, the government should give some punishment such as fines. When a family wants to have a second child, they should be fined. The government needs to solve the basic problems as well. They should provide more opportunities to people who need jobs to support their families and help the children who cannot go to school to obtain an education. Overall, the most important point is the Chinese govern-ment should pay more attention to this issue of over-population. As soon as we fix this problem, China will go forward. The Chinese should recognize that solving this problem is the only way to improve the quality of our lives. If every child can gain an educa-tion, it will be beneficial to the development of the country. In short, over-population is a necessary problem that all the Chinese people need to face and fix today.

OVERPOPULATION IN CHINA by Meng Li

World of Words

Voluntary works in Canada (Marathon) by ShunFu Hu,

In walks with three dying marathon runners, their feet withered, their pupils shadowed, their faces dominated by suffocation, their garments assaulted by perspiration, yet their perseverance staying un-tainted, having been holding up their lifeless body as they let out their joyful cry at the moment they rushed through the banner in the final line. Jocund glory stood tiptoe by their side, along with Joy, who came from their hearts. Beside those were a group of voluntary spirits, their origins varying, from Montenegro to Korea, from Taiwan to China, but all conveyed the wholehearted willingness to devote, representative of the Uni-versity of Toronto Voluntary Group. From the OISE they came, in a car they celebrated two birthdays, and in a temporary tent they camped. They woke when the sun stealthily shed its humble light into their place the next morning, and rested after the sun was about to hide its face. Many runners they saw, their pleas-ure they shared, their smile their rewards, their endeavouring their model, their perspiration their inspira-tion.


I belong to a volunteer group in Japan, the name is “Yumeoibito”. The purpose of Yumeoibito's activity is to build an elementary school in Laos by collect-ing construction costs, one million and fifty thou-sand yen. By the way, the activity is called “making every heart into a loop with 100yen”. Our policy is “Not fund-raising, but cooperation”. We never do a fundraising campaign and hold events to raise funds. Well, what do we do? For example, we speak to strangers and distribute handbills, explain Yumeoibito, or while we pick up garbage, we appeal to cooperate. And by reporting the present situation in Laos to those who joined “making every heart into a loop

with 100yen” on the homepage, members can be connected with other cooperators after cooperat-ing. We carried out the collection of construction costs on August 17 this year, and we will be at the opening ceremony of a school between in January and in March next year. Now, we are discussing about our next goal after the ceremony. Lastly, I love to volunteer. I love Yumeoibito. I'd like to join more activities of Yumeoibito after this. Thank you for reading.

by Saki Sasamura

“I love Yumeoibito. I love to volunteer.”

World of Words

Hi! My name is Tomomi! I'm a Japanese girl. I came to Toronto for Speaking English class for one month. I could meet various kinds of situation here. Now, I want to talk about my experience in Toronto and some-thing I felt. First of all, when I got lost, some people in Toronto asked ''May I help you?" and "Everything Ok?" even though I didn't ask. Every time I got lost, some people in To-ronto asked me. I was very glad. My heart got to be warm. I haven’t felt such feelings in Japan so much. But in Toronto, I could feel that almost every day. Of course, though Japanese are kind, people in To-ronto are especially kind for me. And I was also impressed with the behavior of clerks. If you are Japanese and when you came to Toronto, you will understand what I mean soon. In Japan, they serve what you ordered quickly and services are very very good with no tip. But they look busy. In Toronto, I feel relationship between clerks and customers is very relaxed and time have passed slowly. I like the atmosphere. It’s new for me. If you want to feel one, I recommend little Italy to you. You can see nice people and place.

Next, we were sometimes told, ‘Japanese are shy. They don’t say own their opinions so much.’’ It’s true but I think it is because of education in Japan. In my case, I didn’t need say my opinion in front of other stu-dents when I was high school student. All I had to do was understand what teachers taught and remember that to pass the uni-versity of my First Choice. There were no chances to debate in class. So, Japanese are not always shy, they are not used to say-ing their opinions in front of audience. Though I wrote some negative opinions to Japan, the reason why I think so is that I have lived in Japan for 20 years. So any-thing in Toronto looks bright and makes me happy. Actually my mother doesn’t agree with some of my opinions. Some Canadians who have been to Japan also told that Japa-nese services are excellent and Japan is very safe so they like Japan very much. Yes, it depends on our way of thinking. But nev-ertheless I want to ask people in Toronto “Do you know how attractive you are?’’

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Lucy: second from right & her best friend, first from left. Lucy is originally from China and is currently completing her masters in KU in Japan.

My Summer in Toronto.

by Lucy Wang This summer is one of the most wonderful summers in my life, because I went to Toronto with 29 students from our university in Japan. I spent a very short but happy time there. Although I have come back, I still remember all the things in Toronto. Such as the wide streets, the cute houses, the busy subways, and lots of people who come from all over the world. This was my first time to go to an English speaking country. My dream has come true now. I feel that it was a very very beautiful dream. In the

dream, I met my best friend who comes from Tokyo. We met each other every day and went everywhere together. We were in the different class. Both of us enjoyed our school life very much. After class, we usually ate lunch, went to many places where we want to go. We tasted a lot of delicious food, talked with many types of people, bought a large number of souvenirs. I felt free in Toronto. I think people who live there have their own freedom in their hearts. That is important and nice. Also, people are active and passion there. So Toronto has given me an amazing and fantastic memory. I love my class very much. My teacher is so kind and my classmates are all good people. I met two lovely girls come from the same country as me. But when we began to feel de-light at our friendship, we had to say goodbye. I felt sad. The friends I made in Toronto are my biggest fortune for me. I will keep in touch with them. My host family is also very nice. I like all the things there. Anyway, the summer I spent in Toronto is unforget-table and I do remember this special experience for-ever.

World of Words

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World of Words

When we think about horse power, usually what comes to mind is p h y s i c a l s t r e n g t h . Horses are very strong animals, in-deed. Even since ancient

times they were used as a pull force for household purposes. With time, the use of horses has changed. Nowadays, people are rarely using these ani-mals as a pull force on farms or for hunting; they are using them more in sports and medicine. While being very strong physically, horses are also very powerful in many other ways, so that they can be qualified as very good “doctors”. In today’s world, therapeu-tic riding is very popular and widely practised among many clinics that work with people who suffer from stroke, autism, Down’s syn-drome, cerebral palsy, physical disabilities and many others. In August, ELP students had a great opportu-nity to meet and listen to the presentation of Kelly Sherrard who works with horses and kids with disabilities. Kelly is very passionate about horses and has been riding since she was a child. She told us everything about the horses from colors, marks and breeds to Olympic Games and therapy. The whole presentation was very exciting and interesting. However, one thing that I found most fascinating is the way horses are used for riding therapy. It has been proven that horses have great qualities that help children with, for example autism and Down’s syndrome, to get better and achieve so much. The therapy reaches children in a way that parents and other therapies are not able to. Still, unfortunately, not all children respond to horse therapy because everyone is different. However, many doctors believe that with proper training, horses have an amazing potential to treat kids with different kinds of disorders. Riding therapy helps chil-dren learn about themselves, interact with others and the world around them. It also

stimulates muscle pattern, promotes bal-ance and muscle development. At the same time, the children gain horse riding skills. It is challenging for kids with autism to communi-cate, however, after few sessions with a horse, improved results can be seen. Thera-peutic riding also can help children with dis-orders to become leaders, since horses by nature like to be led. Horses are very sensi-tive and can feel everything that is happening around them. So when the leader asks non-aggressively and nicely, the horse will obey and feel safe and comfortable. Any breed of horses can be used for the ther-apy, however they have to be trained first to be calm and patient, since safety of kids comes first. Our guest speaker told us that horses have special training during which different sounds and actions which might be e x p r e s s e d by kids with d i s o r d e r s are made by the trainer. In fact, Kelly said that she trains horses in this way and also super-vises chil-dren during therapeutic riding. She told us a very touching success story of one of her students who suffered from au-tism. After receiving riding therapy, he fell in love with horses and got very good at riding. Also he saw great health improvement. He took more and more horse riding lessons and eventually he was competing at the Paralym-pics. I think this kind of story should encour-age and inspire parents whose children suf-fer from disorders to sign up their kids for a life changing beneficial experience. Not nec-essarily every child will participate in Para-lympics, but horses will help them to dis-cover the world around them, get to know themselves better, and cure the diseases or make significant improvement. Even though there is still a possibility that the child will not respond to the treatment, parents still should not give up and just give it a try.

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by Claire (Minjeong) Kim

Young people in Korea usually get a job and start a new chapter in their life after finishing their post-secondary education. However, for more than 5 years, the situation has been changing. If people get a job before or right after graduating from university, everyone applauds their success because recently it has not been easy to see young generations finding work. One major cause of youth un-employment is that an economic downturn in Korea has not produced strong growth in employment for several years. Most corpora-tions usually recruit their new employees twice a year, but the number of recruits has kept decreasing. The official jobless rate for those aged 15-29 stands at 8.3 percent, which is more than twice the jobless rate of 3.5 percent of the whole nation, according to the National Statistical Office in Korea. The other major cause is over-education. On the one hand, a number of corporations say that they have difficulty hiring high school gradu-ates for entry-level jobs. On the other hand, a growing number of university graduates are competing against each other in a job mar-ket which is gradually getting smaller. This phenomenon makes students postpone their graduation from university and register for a 9th or 10th semester without any academic purpose, while students traditionally took eight semesters to graduate. According to Samsung Economic Research Institute in Ko-rea, when a 25-year-old person is out of work for a year, it means a loss of 23.8 million won (approximately US$ 2,000) in personal in-come, and another loss of 330,000 won (approximately US$ 300) in tax revenue to the government. In addition, the quality of labor will decline when a large number of

y o u t h s r e m a i n

out of work for a long time, thus deprived of an opportunity for learning job skills. Many corporations say there are few young em-ployees to learn its know-how from the for-mer generation at the work place.

The first solution, reducing the number of jobless youths, is that the Korean govern-ment should offer a variety of youth pro-grams to have job opportunities, such as in-ternships or work place experience pro-grams. For instance, the government or other social organizations provide job experi-ence programs for university students during vacation, and students can get credits for their courses, or a small salary. It could be helpful to not only youths who do not have any work experience, but also the corpora-tions which need extra people to work tem-porarily. Secondly, it is necessary for the government to provide incentives for those admitted to vocational high schools and to two-year junior colleges. Many Koreans think academic education is much more valuable than technical education. That is why there are few people who want to go to vocational high school or to two-year junior college to learn technical skills. It is far from acceptable for more than 80 percent of high school graduates to go to university in Korea. This goal among Koreans means that many uni-versities are opening every year, even though some have decided to close because they do not have enough students to operate their business. This is a social problem not only in Korea but also all over the world nowadays; however, we need to have specific and force-ful solutions for the future of Korea.

Jobless Youth

World of Words

It's Friday! So let's have a picnic. Almost the whole class met on Friday after classes at the ferry docks. Some of our classmates brought a friend and one woman brought her daughter. We went to Centre Island to have a picnic together.

Everybody enjoyed the short but very nice trip on the ferry. We saw the skyline of Toronto and the sun was shining. After we arrived at the island we walked a short distance until we reached a nice place to have our lunch. The place was set directly on the edge of the lake. Certainly there were also the birds which are never missed on the island. As soon as we were set-tled at our table they began to fly around us and to “talk" to each other with their strange noises, but we ignored them and started our picnic. Everybody brought something to eat or to drink. We were such a nice group! The time passed by too quickly with talking, laughing, taking pictures and certainly eat-ing. Also there were two girls who went to bathe their feet in the lake. However a swan tried to bite them. The whole atmosphere was relaxed, bright and easy. The time passed too fast. As we had a

look at the time it was already five o'clock so we de-cided to go back. The birds had just waited for this moment. As soon as we cleaned up our things nearly fifty birds flew to our table and started to pick at the leftovers of our picnic. That way nobody had to care about the garbage right? Back on the ferry there were a lot of people. When we waited for the ship the daughter of one of our classmates got an animal made out of balloons and she wore it as we got off the ferry. It looked very nice. We enjoyed another short and windy trip on the boat and said good bye for now to the island. Back in the city we separated at the ferry docks. Some people in our class went to a Korean pub and the others went home or did something else. But I am sure that everyone enjoyed this won-derful afternoon. It was a great picnic!

Class Trip: Toronto Islands by Lailla Grillo


15 Years of WOW

To the left: an ICU group od students featured in a past issue of WOW. Below: Summer 2010 ICU group of students with CA Toni.

World of Words

Comments from Chongming Teachers “We enjoyed our stay in Toronto very much. Eve-ryone is friendly and polite. Especially, our teach-

ers are patient; when we met troubles, they always tried their best to help us. In class Maryam en-

couraged us to communicate with each other in English. We are really thankful...”

Guo Yili, Lu Jian, and Chen Yu

“We are very fortunate to have the opportunity to

come to U of T. The teachers here are very experi-enced, energetic and friendly. We enjoyed every

minute of our class. These memories are really un-forgettable.”

Mao Yumin (Amy), Ni Yanqin (Nice Ni), and

Yin Lujun (Liz) Sept 2, 2010

“How time flies! It’s wonderful to be here. We ex-

perienced the exciting life in Toronto and enjoyed every minute in class with our knowledgeable and

elegant instructor—Maryam McCubbin. Also we met energetic Jennifer and many other wonderful

teachers.

We experienced the canoe in Lake Ontario, we en-joyed the crazy farewell dinner...

We have learned a lot, and we have also left our footprints in Toronto. Everybody is attracted by

the beautiful city—Toronto! We love Toronto. We love the warm-hearted and helpful people here!”

EFL teachers from Chonming:

Yuan Zhifeng (Danielle), Wang Jing Jing

(Grace), and Liu Fenxia (Windy)


“We are glad to be here for further study and enjoy-ing the wonderful education methods in teaching English. We are overwhelmed by our teacher’s dedicated spirit in teaching, warm-hearted help, and ever energetic state. Despite the fact that we have different culture background, we can share with each other many aspects, such as methodol-ogy and organization in class. We appreciate Maryam’s beauty, hard work, courtesy, elegance, wisdom, profound knowledge, you name it. We will cherish all the experience here forever.” Xie Qiongyao and ShenBin (Sharon) “University of Toronto is fantastic. All the teachers are experienced and understanding. They prepared each class dedicatedly. Here we enjoyed every min-ute of each class. Most of us has made much pro-gress. No, we should say all of us improved our spoken English greatly. And our listening is much better. We thank all our teachers and all the staff. You give us many interesting and meaningful classes, you also organized many kinds of extra ac-tivities and clubs. You introduced the whole city to us and showed the English and Canadian culture to us. We feel like fish in water here. This training program is our unforgettable experi-ence in our whole life.” He Weiqiong (Vivien), Zhu Liu, and Di Shi “I enjoyed the one-month stay in Toronto, a city with cultural diversity and the great harmony of na-ture, humans, and animals.” Gao Quan (Mike) “We enjoyed our stay in Toronto very much. Within one month our group of 20 teachers travelled around the whole city. We saw sites such as CN Tower, Niagara Falls, and the Central Island. What impressed us the most was that our teachers were very kind and hospitable. They created a lot of op-portunities to communicate with us. Thank you very much.” Fan Liu, Zhou Hong, and Yuan Chunfang

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World of Words

Alcohol, drugs, and dictionaries With a catchy title like “alcohol, drugs, and diction-aries”, you can guess what this article is about. Guessing is exactly what I would like you to do be-cause it is an important language skill. If you can predict approximately what the following para-graphs are about, I would say you are doing well. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me explain. I strongly believe that many ESL students are so dependent on dictionaries that they are crippling their language comprehension, especially reading. It is not a surprise that when I give my class a reading comprehension exercise and ask that all dictionar-ies be closed and put away, most students look at me in an anguished sort of way. Some say that no teacher of theirs has ever asked them to shut their dictionaries. This kind of makes me a bit mad (just a tiny bit) and I often reply “actually, you should leave your dictionaries at home”. There are many reasons for this stance. I teach test preparation classes. No proficiency test I know (e g., iBT TOEFL, IELTS, MELAB) allows test takers to look up words in a dictionary while writing a test. Nor are smart phones and BlackBerrys al-lowed in any test. So, you are basically on your own. All you can take to a test centre is yourself, your identification, your skills, and something to write with (a pen and/or a pencil). So, in my test prepara-tion classes, I teach test taking and language skills that do not depend on any aids (dictionaries, cell-phones, etc.). Quite often, the first demon I must slay is the dictionary and it is quite a tricky busi-ness. It's tricky because dictionaries are very impor-tant in your language development. I love dictionar-ies and am awed by the array of electronic diction-aries that are available to an ESL learner. However, overuse of dictionaries can backfire and stunt the very skill you are trying to master. In the last five years, the proliferation of electronic dictionaries has skyrocketed and, predictably, so has the depend-ency on these clever gadgets. So, what must an ESL learner do, especially when

preparing for a proficiency test? As the title of this article suggests, you must be aware that there are things like alcohol and drugs to which people get addicted. I would like to say unconditionally that we should stay away from drugs. Alcohol, on the other hand, can be consumed in a judicious way when re-laxing and socializing. It can also enhance the enjoy-ment of certain foods. However, one does not drink alcohol with every meal or at all times of the day. There is a time and place for alcohol consumption. Dictionaries are similar to alcohol, so you should learn to use them wisely. Before you reach for your dictionary, use your inborn language skills in order to understand what words mean in particular con-texts. After understanding the meaning of a word, you can consult a dictionary to see if your hunch was correct. If you discipline yourself not to reach for the dictionary as soon as you see a new word, but rather guess its meaning from the context, you will probably improve your language comprehen-sion in no time. Well, try this at home and see for yourself. Pick up a newspaper like “Metro”. Choose an article and read it. Make brief notes on the main idea and important details of the article. Try your best to un-derstand what the author is trying to convey. Next, make a list of words whose meanings you don't un-derstand. Because you have a rough idea of the arti-cle, you can probably guess the meanings of some words at least. Write down your best guess next to each word. Then look up in your dictionary to see if your guesses were right. Repeat this procedure with as many articles as possible. In a few days, you are likely to develop the guessing skill. Moreover, if you guess the meanings of some words correctly, the skill will empower you and make you a more confi-dent language learner. What's more, you will be-come adept at reading quickly once you have confi-dence in yourself. Skills like skimming for main ideas, scanning for particular pieces of information, guessing the meaning of unfamiliar words, and pre-dicting how an article might develop ideas are im-portant for the reading sections of proficiency tests. Moreover, time is very limited in the reading section of proficiency tests. By acquiring and honing the guessing skill and gaining some confidence, you would likely cut down on the time it takes you to un-derstand the important ideas in a passage. Be re-sponsible for your language development. Read as much English as you possibly can. Put your diction-aries away and develop your skills of guessing, un-derstanding, and predicting.

by Meher Shaik


Jamal, Malik, Ahmad and I, who are students in fo-cus class, level 40 at U of T, conducted a survey. Because we are non-Canadians, and we know there are many smoking laws in Canada, we wanted to explore Canadians' opinions about these laws. Be-fore conducting the survey, we discussed a lot to created the questions which we wanted to know about. We tried to make it easy and not to take a lot of time to ask and answer them. After that, we were ready to ask people, so we decided where we would go to contact them. Because I was very shy, and

this was the first time doing it also in English which is not my first language, I preferred to choose Tim Horton as a place to contact Canadians where no one will be busy. When I was there , I chose the sin-gle people to ask and asked the questions quickly and clearly to make sure there was no confusion. Then, I wrote the answers immediately not to forget them. At the same time, my partners did the same job in different places. After that, we met in the class to collect and analyze the information. Finally, we created charts for each

Are you smoker? 1 :not smokers 2: smokers

If the government put a new law to increase the cost of ciga-rettes, will it help to decrease the amount of smokers?

There is a law to ban smoking in buildings, do you think it's safe to smoke outside after midnight?

Do you like to visit someone who smokes inside his or her house?

1: no 2 : yes

In your opinion, what age do you think people should be allowed to smoke?

1 : age 2 : the number of people who said that age

Survey: Attitudes about Smoking The following process paragraphs explain the process this class followed when they de-veloped surveys on issues of concern to Canadians.

By Jamal Al Nofiay, Malik Al Salih, Ahmed Afaraj, Asma Alsulamy Paragraph by Asma Alsulamy

1: no 2 : yes

1: no 2 : yes

World of Words

“I like this picture because it is very cute!!!!” by Shohei Asakawa

“I like this because I was deeply impressed and interested in the word of "TORONTO" was draw by someone in Toronto city” by Ayumi Takeda.

“This grafitti was drawn by someone. I think the picture is maker's dream, so he or she wanted to become super dancer!!” Anony-mous

Toronto: Graffiti Art by various students


HAVE YOU SEEN THIS PERSON? 100,000 REWARD! He goes by the names: Mehmet, Aoi, Thierry, Attaya, Philipp, and many more. But don’t be fooled. His real name is Mustafa.

WANTED FOR DISTIRBING THE ELP PEACE! (no we’re just kidding—Mustafa has been our student for awhile at ELP, but now he has gone to start his Masters at McMaster University. Congrats! Mustafa.)

WANTED

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World of Words

Compare Policing in Toronto and South Korea (Seoul)

There are some differences between Toronto and Korea. First of all, In Korea, they don’t have horses. Actually Seoul is too crowd to using horse to polic-ing and it’s too expensive in Korea. In terms of car, it costs more than 4 times. Next, most of policemen want to promote speed. Because salary gap be-tween ranks is quite big and initial salary is less than 20,000 dollar per year. It’s a pretty small payment

to make a living in Seoul. So, if they get a chance to promote, they won’t miss it! Third one is equipment. In Korea, policemen don’t wear bulletproof vest and carry taser gun. Of course they don’t have need to keep their gun because authority in Korea is so strong. So they rarely feel difficulty when they deal with people who make trouble or commit misde-meanor. Conversely, they have some similarities. Their policing system is very similar in some way. They set the districts and each district has their po-lice branch and they follow their own rules or mis-sions. Sometimes they cooperate with each other so they can police more efficiently.

Author: Anonymous

Policemen’s speech When I was 13 years old, I decided to become an English teacher in my home country, Japan. There-fore, I have never considered a career in policing. However, one of my friends once considered it. He was thinking about his job in the future. He was in-terested in preserving the peace. By listening to Mr. Montgomery’s presentation, I learned that the job is not so easy, and sometimes, the job is dangerous for them. The policemen sacrifice their tome and health for the peace. It moved my heart very much. The reason was that to contribute for the citizens was not easy at all as I had thought. I decided to become an English teacher because I want to change the children’s dislikes of English. It is the way for me to contribute to the citizens. It is not same as police men because there is no dangerous thing or too much sacrifice. And also, English

teachers are not criticized by the citizens. It is some kind of paradox that the police are criticized by the citizens because polices are for the citizens. Also, in Japan, I often hear that people do not like, sometimes rather than do not like, hate the police. These people usually say that the police disturb them to do something. It sounds arrogance be-cause all people who have a job do disturb some-body to do their own jobs. They cannot help to make someone uncomfortable. That is how the world moving. Needless to say, at the same time, they contribute to their society and the others. We are now here because our ancestors tried their best to make this world better. We are doing same thing now as they tried. Sometimes, we will feel uncom-fortable about some organizations. But, sometimes it is needed to accept those things by knowing the reasons why they did so. This will make the world much better and better.

Saoko Tabuchi (Sao)

Imagine what is like to be a police officer. Last week, two officers explained to the English Lan-guage Program how to be a police officer. They explained the requirements to be a police offi-cer, and also indicated what the selection process was. They talked about their duties, and also about their equipment. Most interesting of all, they introduced us to their personal experiences. The police officers presentation was rich in infor-mation and now we feel safe. The presentation was engaging and thought-provoking. We admire them,

we respect them, and we were impressed by their friendliness and dedication to keeping the peace.

Submitted by the class of 4-170: Amal, Mubarak, Yunny, Ayako, Yu-riko, Sophie, Kerry, Yoshiki, Risa, Mikaela, Amy, Jaeho and Yoshiyuki.

Imagine What It’s Like to be a Police Officer


BK Yoon is a very special alumni of the Eng-lish Language Program. Origi-nally an English teacher in Japan, Yoon came to Can-ada to further his education and explore the coun-try where his wife grew up in. After taking a course at ELP, he went onto pursuing a Mas-ters degree from the University of Toronto (OISE) while working as a staff member at the ELP of-fice. Recently, he also completed his TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) stud-ies to become an ESL teacher. Yoon is a wonder-ful friend and counselor and is very much adored by all the Cultural Assistants he su-pervises. If you are an ELP stu-dent considering further studies in or immigration to Canada, you defi-nitely won't want to miss out on this exclusive inter-view: Q: What is your cultural back-ground? A: I'm a 3rd genera-tion Korean-Japanese and soon to be Canadian.

Q: What do you like about Canada? A: As soon as you arrive at Pearson International Airport, you can become Canadian. In other words, you NEVER stand out because of your appearance such as race and eth-nic background. Q: How long have you been studying English? A: Real study? 6 years. Q: What did you do as an ESL student? What was your favourite part about ELP as a student? A: I not only studied in class but also tried to think in Eng-lish, dream in English and act like a local Torontonian. More importantly, I also participated in all the activities organized by ELP and took advantage of all the opportuni-ties that ELP provided. Q: How long have you been working at the ELP? What did you do? A: When I first started working at ELP in June 2006, I was still a 2nd year Master student at OISE. I was the only CA at that time, believe it or not. What did I do? I can’t list all of the things I did with students because there are sooooooooo many. All the experiences that I have had at ELP for sure made me grow. Q: Tell us about the most memorable experience you had at ELP. A: One of the eye-opening experiences was when one of my favorite teachers at ELP once shared his teaching philoso-phy; “to learn is to teach twice.” Q: Why did you want to become an ESL teacher? A: Because I know as an ESL teacher, what aspects of Eng-lish students find difficult to acquire and I can help them what solutions and strategies they can apply to maximize their learning. Also, I understand that English can give you more opportunities than you had ever imagined before. There are so many, I mean, so many interesting things that we don’t know and English language can help you explore them. There is an old saying that “the frog in the well knows nothing of the great ocean.” This means that if you stay only in your comfort zone, you won’t be able to find other great things in your life and maybe another-self. Go outside, use English and explore yourself! Does this make sense? Q: Is there anything else you would like to share with students? Any advice for studying English or immi-grating to Canada? A: I believe that Canada gives you great opportunities. But in order to be successful, you gotta meet the right people, at the right time and at the right place. Keep an eye open be-cause your opportunity may be lying right in front of you!

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What do others think about Yoon?

Anna: YOON IS THE BEST AND COOLEST PERSON IN THE WORLD. :) It has been great working with him, being his classmate and talking to him about anything and everything. He’s a great friend! Life would not be the same without him! Janet: Yoon as a friend: humourous, mellow, interesting, open minded, and an around solid friend. Yoon as a supervisor: encouraging, supportive, incredibly open, organized and just knows what he's doing. He really pushes us to push ourselves. Jay: Yoon is a friendly and kind to everyone no matter what their age is. I want to get to know him more. Shirley: Yoon-san is an awesome co-worker, supervisor, teacher, friend, counsellor, and big brother! I'm really glad I got to know him through working at ELP! Tope: I can always count on Yoon to offer me excellent guidance.

To Shirley-san! 道険笑歩 From BK Yoon

World of Words

WoW magazine has come a long way—this year, we are celebrating the 15th anniversary of WoW! Take a look at how its changed over the past 15 years ...

World of Words

30 Years at ELP How things have changed! When I started as an ESL teacher in this program 30 years ago, the program was quite simple: we had one course – general ESL with Talking and Writing in the morning and Reading and Listening in the afternoon. Even in those days we had a lot of students, we just did not have a lot of space. During the fall and winter terms, we were in many different buildings on the campus, and in the summer we moved to St. Michael’s College or to University College. Computers - none. TV/VCRs - no way. Tape re-corders - a few. The basic equipment was chalkboards and chalk. A major improvement was when we got a photocopier! Slowly things started to change. First we got rented space here at OISE. It included one small room for the administra-tion office. It only had space for one desk and chair, so the two (yes, in those days we only had two people in the office) members of the admin staff had to take turns sitting at the desk. About 13 years ago we moved to our current offices and classrooms. The choice of courses increased from the general ESL to Academic English, Business English, to Com-prehensive English, and Speaking English. The teaching staff, as well as the office staff, has increased manifold. We get students from all over the world and are working on in-creasing the number of countries represented here. Through my years here, we have had some great times and some harder times. At one point we had so many students that even though we already had the regular classrooms we have now, we had to rent 15-20 extra rooms all over the cam-pus; some classes were in a different room almost every day. Then there was a global economic crisis and our student numbers went down drastically. One year, there was a fire in the OISE building on the first day of courses, so the whole building was shut down for several weeks. We quickly found another building for our classes, and when the students

came in the following morning, not knowing that there had been a fire, we had to find them all and direct them to the other building. We made it, and the summer went smoothly despite the fact that we really had to improvise a lot. And that to me is the secret of the success of ELP: no matter what happens, we work hard and make this a great place to study. Working in the ELP, first as an instructor for 17 years and then as a coordinator for the last 13 years, has been an amaz-ing experience for me. I have met a huge number of students from many different places and learnt a lot from them. The instructors are a truly inspiring and talented group of people – I have always said that the ELP staffroom is one of my fa-vourite places in the world. The office staff is both knowl-edgeable and helpful. I especially enjoy seeing the CAs at work full of enthusiasm and new ideas. Now that I am close to retirement, I can gratefully say that his has been a work-place like no other, and I will miss it very much.

by Marjatta Holt Course Coordinator, 30 years at ELP, 30 years wowing students and co-workers

Part of this special issue, we chose to fea-ture ELP staff and instructors who have been here for 15 years or more ! We asked some to reflect on their experience work-ing here and how the program has changed over the past years.


by Laurie Weber In fifteen years of teaching, what has never ceased to surprise me is the range of personalities and be-haviors I find among my students. Not just shy, or talkative, or outgoing, or hardworking, but all kinds of unexpected permutations, such as disorganized but trustworthy, studious and forgetful, ambitious but lazy (occasionally!). Although I try not to develop stereotypical views of various nationalities, I have formed generalizations over the years, but even these get frequently challenged as I meet students who just don’t fit the expected pattern. I even had a “rude” Japanese in my class at one point. He simply didn’t act with the exquisite politeness I had come to expect, but stated bluntly what he wanted. His Japa-

nese classmates felt it necessary to speak to me pri-vately and explain that this particular person was behaving in a very un-Japanese way and that I shouldn’t think that all Japanese were like that. They were embarrassed, but I thought it was refreshing to come across someone who didn’t fit the usual mold at all. For me, meeting individuals in the classroom is a delight, and I look forward to discovering what unique combination of personality and national cul-ture they each bring to the class. I also enjoy watch-ing how they interact with each other, and discover-ing how each class is different from any other I’ve ever had. It’s like a new salad every time: a little bit of this, a few pieces of that, some oil, some lemon, a touch of garlic, give it a good toss, and the result is a surprise. Occasionally, it’s not a wonderful taste, but most of the time it’s delicious!

by Heather Bryans

I’ve been teaching in the ELP for 22 years. Agh! Is that possible? The time has gone so fast. From my very first class to my most recent one, teaching in the ELP has been a real joy, and it is the students who are at the heart of my love for this work. I am grateful to all the students who I have met over the years for sharing their lives and aspirations, and for keeping me young (in spirit, at least). Thank you to all my past students for 22 great years, and a warm welcome to students yet to come.

World of Words

b y E v e l y n P e d e r s e n * Pros & cons of teaching English for 15 years It has been a joy to be teaching with the ELP for the past 20+ years; in this career we meet so many interesting students, from a wide variety of academic, professional, and cultural backgrounds. Exchanging ideas and sharing experiences in the classroom every day with college-age students and young professionals has, I think, helped keep me young! Sure there have been a few bumps along the way, but on the whole, I am very thankful to be working in this field. And “if I had to do it all over again,” I would choose to be an instructor in the ELP! * Words of wisdom for outgoing & incoming students My philosophy for learning language is this: “English in, Eng-lish out.” Students must take every opportunity to take IN English: by participation in the ELP’s extra-curricular activi-ties and Volunteer Club; by reading English language newspa-pers, magazines, short stories, novels, and non-fiction; by watching English language television programs and movies; and of course by making friends and spending time with native speakers, as well as with students from other countries. There are all kinds of opportunities for conversation at the U of T’s International Student Centre; several downtown churches also welcome, and host conversation clubs ~ and

free dinners! ~ for international students; check out these opportunities. We’re soon coming into hockey season: watch hockey with your Canadian homestay family, and ask them to explain the game to you. Go to one of Toronto’s market areas ~ Kensington, or the St. Lawrence Market ~ and chat with the vendors. Head down to Harbourfront for one of the many free events there, and strike up a conversation with an exhibitor or local artist; they’re eager to speak to you. The more students immerse themselves in these kinds of real-world language situations, the more improvement they will see in their English abilities. The worst thing a student can do is spend all his time in the safety zone of friends and family from his own country ~ how can that ever lead to improve-m e n t i n t h e n e w l a n g u a g e ? * How has the ELP changed during these 15 years The English Language Program has changed in many ways. Our program has grown in physical space, course offerings, and in enrolment. Students today are much more sophisti-cated than they were 20 years ago, and the ELP has had to embrace change in order to respond to the needs of modern ESL learners. We have had to adopt new technologies, as well as new approaches in the classroom. But change is good! As our students have grown, we have grown along with them, and it has been an exciting journey; in fact, there has been “never a dull moment.”

Jennifer Harris has been with ELP for more than 15 yeaers now. in one of the past WoW issues, students have written an artile about her—take a look below:


Thank you! by Mary Lawless (ELP Instructor) It is with great pleasure that I write this article about my colleagues Catherine, Evelyn, Heather, Jennifer, Jesse, Laurie, Linda, Maurilio and Steve Bahry. Each of these teachers has taught in the English Language Program for at least fifteen years. If you have ever been in Catherine’s class, you know that she loves her dog Jake. Jake comes to visit every once in awhile. He helps to make the ELP really feel like home. Catherine has a passion for teaching reading in her class, and she helps her students develop a love of reading. She started a collection of books that she shares with her students in the classroom. Catherine also knows how im-portant it is for her students to write well in English. She creates many interesting materials to help her students improve their writ-ing while having fun. Heather also loves books but a different kind of book. Heather’s students get to know the dictionary very well. Heather makes this sometimes boring topic seem fun, and her students really benefit from the experience. Heather knows that students need a large amount of English vocabulary to be successful learners. Her stu-dents also learn valuable strategies to improve their vocabulary outside of the classroom. She helps them become independent learners. Jennifer loves teaching teachers. One of her specialties is to help teachers from all over the world develop lesson plans and materials to teach English. Jennifer teaches the teachers, and they teach many people in their home countries. Jennifer also enjoys teaching English through music. Her students find out that country music provides many new words for them to learn. Jesse shares Jennifer’s enjoyment of music, but Jesse enjoys a different kind of music. She sings opera music. Jesse has a beauti-ful voice and often attends Geordie’s Jam (the music night) to sing with students and other teachers. Jesse’s other passion is teaching the first level in the Comprehensive Eng-lish program. Many of her students are very shy at the beginning of the course, and they find it difficult to speak. Jesse makes every student feel comfortable and soon they talk, talk, and talk! Linda shares Jennifer and Jesse’s love of music. She also sings at Geor-die’s Jam, and her favourite song is Hallelujah. This song was written by a famous Canadian singer, Leonard Cohen. Linda’s specialty is organiz-ing trips for students to visit major attractions in Toronto. She takes students to the Royal Ontario Mu-seum, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Queen’s Park (Government of On-tario) and the Ontario Science Cen-tre. Linda helps her students learn English while they learn about Cana-

dian culture. I have seen the smiles on students’ faces as they visit one of these great places. Steve Bahry (We are lucky to have two Steves in the ELP!) works with other teachers in the ELP. He has many years of teaching ex-perience and knowledge of research that he shares with everyone. He also sings and plays the guitar at Geordie’s Jam. Sometimes, his sons will join us at the music night. One of his sons plays the trum-pet and the other plays the flute. It is really nice to see Steve and his two sons playing music with our students and teachers. This also makes the ELP feel like home. Maurilio helps his students to enjoy every minute in the classroom. In fact, Maurilio’s students do not want to leave the classroom. At the end of class, my students begin to get ready to leave. They look at the clock, stop listening to me, and put their books away. Mauril-ios’ students do not do this! I think that they would stay all day if they could. One day, we had a big snowstorm, and our building was closed because of the storm. Maurilio was still in the classroom with his students. Nobody wanted to leave, but they had to go. Maurilio shares his love of learning with his students, and they en-joy learning English from him. Laurie makes her business class fun for her students. I see Laurie’s students in the hall, and they are excited about learning business skills, strategies and vocabulary. Once students enter Laurie’s classroom, they are not at school, they are at work. Laurie helps her students study genuine business situations in the classroom, and she shares her many years of business experience with her stu-dents. Laurie loves to garden. She grows beautiful flowers, and I believe that her yard looks like a park. Evelyn has two passions! She loves to write and she loves to watch movies. Evelyn’s students benefit from both of these passions. She teaches them how to write in the North American style, and she teaches English through movies. Evelyn makes her students work very hard when they are writing, but then she lets them relax when they are watching a movie. She also makes very good popcorn to share with her students during the movie! As you can see, I am very lucky to have such great coworkers, but I am even luckier because they are my friends. Please join me in thanking these wonderful teachers for spending so many years helping students.

Last but not least, some closing remarks and “thank yous” by one of ELPs current AE instructors.

ask your friends and mentors to share memories

University of Toronto School of Continuing Studies English Language Program

world of words; summer session; issue 71

Documents

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elp student

elp page

elp ca

elp staff instructors

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