TESL Ontario Webinar

Do you find yourself worrying about your students' well-being? Have your students shared their traumatic experiences with you? Are you impacted by vicarious trauma?

As front-line workers in a helping profession, language teachers are often among the first with whom refugees develop a sense of relationship, through interaction in the form of daily English classes over many weeks. This closeness can lead to disclosures of past or ongoing trauma. We will discuss levels of preparedness with respect to teaching students with complex mental health needs.

This panel of researchers from 3 provinces will:

• describe the mental health effects of vicarious trauma upon those in helping professions who support trauma survivors
• explore the paradox of providing language teachers pedagogical advice with respect to programming for refugees, but very limited input with respect to their own self-care in relation to vicarious trauma
• discuss how teacher surveys will aid in identifying gaps in teacher preparedness & policy to ensure teacher well-being
• make procedural recommendations to ensure student are directed to mental health professionals

WEBINAR TYPE

Panel Discussion

CATEGORIES

Work/Life Balance Health Mental Health

TEACHING SECTORS

All

PARTICIPANT LEVEL

All

THE PANEL

Dr Allyson Eamer is an Associate Dean and associate professor of sociolinguistics at the Faculty of Education at Ontario Tech University.

Dr Amea Wilbur is an Assistant Professor of Adult Education at the University of Fraser Valley.

Dr Katie Crossman is a researcher at Bow Valley College.

Jennifer Allore (MEd) is the Chair of TESL Ontario's Board of Directors & has conducted research on the impacts of trauma on language learning.

Dr Jia Li is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education at Ontario Tech University.