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SUMMARY:Virtual Professional Learning Day (January 2026)
DESCRIPTION:Registration is now closed. \nCASLT’s Virtual PL Days provide a platform for teachers to connect with colleagues\, engage in interactive professional learning opportunities\, and share best practices. Our experienced team of professional learning facilitators will explore research-informed teaching approaches and strategies to inspire\, motivate\, and challenge teachers to improve their practice. The sessions will be recorded and participants will also leave each workshop with a ready-to-use teacher tool. \nRegistration Options\nMultiple registration options are available to accommodate scheduling and budgetary constraints: \n\n\n\nOption\nMember Price\nStudent Member Price\nNon-Member Price*\n\n\n\n\nFull day (10:00 a.m. to 3:15 p.m. ET)\n$90 + tax\n$50 + tax\n$120 + tax\n\n\nHalf day AM (10:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. ET)\n$50 + tax\n$30 + tax\n$80 + tax\n\n\nHalf day PM (12:45 p.m. to 3:15 p.m. ET)\n$50 + tax\n$30 + tax\n$80 + tax\n\n\n\n*Includes a one-year CASLT membership. \nSchedule\nEach Virtual PL Day will include two streams (one in English and one in French) of four 60-minute workshops. Full day registration includes access to all four workshop blocks\, and half day registration (either AM or PM) includes access to two workshop blocks. \n\n\n\nStart Time*\nEnd Time*\nDescription\n\n\n\n\n10:00 a.m.\n10:15 a.m.\nWelcome and Introduction (Full day or Half day AM registrants)\n\n\n10:15 a.m.\n11:15 a.m.\nShifting Perspectives: Centring Student Voices\, Identity\, and CRRP \nPresenters: Karen Devonish-Mazzotta and Cécile Robertson \nLanguage: English\nHelping Students Build Their Identity Through Intercultural Experiences \nPresenter: Carl Ruest \nLanguage: French\n\n\n11:15 a.m.\n11:30 a.m.\nBreak\n\n\n11:30 a.m.\n12:30 p.m.\nLiving Language: Weaving Indigenous Languages and Ways of Knowing \nPresenters: Gemma Porter and Shirley Cardinal \nLanguage: English\nWhen Language Resonates: Music as a Cultural Speaker \nPresenter: Shauna Néro \nLanguage: French\n\n\n12:30 p.m.\n1:00 p.m.\nBreak (Full day registrants)\n\n\n12:45 p.m.\n1:00 p.m.\nWelcome and Introduction (Half day PM registrants)\n\n\n1:00 p.m.\n2:00 p.m.\nTomorrow’s Tools Today: Using AI in the Additional Language Classroom \nPresenter: Stephanie Jackson \nLanguage: English\nThe Role of the Home Language in the L+ Classroom \nPresenter: Monica Tang \nLanguage: French\n\n\n2:00 p.m.\n2:15 p.m.\nBreak\n\n\n2:15 p.m.\n3:15 p.m.\nCreating and Integrating Games Into Language Teaching \nPresenter: Charlotte Crober \nLanguage: English\nFeedback Worth Giving \nPresenter: Marc-Albert Paquette \nLanguage: French\n\n\n\n* Eastern Standard Time \nSession Descriptions\nEnglish Sessions\nShifting Perspectives: Centring Student Voices\, Identity\, and CRRP\nKaren Devonish-Mazotta and Cécile Robertson \nTo better engage additional language (L+) learners\, educators must shift their attention to centring student voice\, interest\, agency\, and identity. When students have more opportunities to see themselves in the L+ classroom and to make meaningful and relevant connections with their lived experiences\, L+ learning becomes an opportunity to explore and apply language in transformative ways. \nDuring this workshop\, participants will reflect on their social identities and how these inform their practice\, L+ pedagogy\, and learning. A juxtaposition between Culturally Relevant and Responsive Pedagogy (CRRP)\, Intercultural Understanding and Awareness (IUA)\, and curriculum will provide an opportunity to explore anti-oppressive teaching strategies and highlight the importance of critical consciousness in all aspects of L+ policy\, practice\, teaching\, and learning. \nLiving Language: Weaving Indigenous Languages and Ways of Knowing\nGemma Porter and Shirley Cardinal \nDrawing from two courses developed for CASLT (Understanding Decolonization and Indigenization and Diversity of Indigenous Languages)\, this session aims to explore the essential relationship between Indigenous languages and Indigenous ways of knowing. Using pedagogies of story\, lands\, and relational reflexivity\, participants will be guided in experiencing how Indigenous languages are deeply intertwined with ways of knowing and being in the world. \nParticipants will engage in interactive activities that highlight moving beyond the relationship between language and cultural identity to consider how language is foundational to relational ways of knowing and being. By the end of the session\, attendees will have gained insights into the importance of preserving and revitalizing Indigenous languages as central to processes of decolonization and promoting educational equity. \nTomorrow’s Tools Today: Using AI in the Additional Language Classroom\nStephanie Jackson \nCurious about how AI can help you save time and spark creativity in your language classroom? This hands-on workshop will explore practical ways teachers can use AI for lesson planning\, creating resources\, and supporting instruction\, all while keeping the human touch front and centre. Participants will discover free AI tools that can generate lesson plans\, sample texts\, and visuals in the target language. Learn how to create attractive slideshows and resources in minutes\, or how to provide customized feedback to students. Participants will also explore strategies for guiding students in the ethical use of AI\, from checking their writing to practicing tricky grammar. Walk away with ready-to-use ideas\, classroom-tested strategies\, and at least one AI-assisted resource to bring straight to your next lesson. \nCreating and Integrating Games Into Language Teaching\nCharlotte Crober \nThis workshop guides participants through the process of creating Plume: Purrfectly Fluent\, a language-learning board game designed with human-centred design principles. In this game\, players follow Plume\, a cat who wakes up with a mermaid tail and must navigate canals to reach the magical antidote (and everyone knows cats hate water!). Players complete English-language challenges to move along in the game. \nThis workshop focuses on empowering educators to create engaging games and activities tailored to their students’ needs. Participants will explore the development process\, from the initial concept to a prototype\, and gain insight into the skills and resources needed to design and build a small-scale game. They will leave the session with practical ideas for integrating games into language teaching\, using human-centred design to keep students motivated and engaged. This workshop offers the tools and inspiration to create educational games and activities that soothe anxiety and promote laughter in the classroom. \nFrench Sessions\nHelping Students Build Their Identity Through Intercultural Experiences\nCarl Ruest \nHow can we encourage our students to discover and shape their identity through intercultural experiences? This workshop will present an approach where reading\, viewing authentic texts\, and meeting people from different backgrounds become engines of self-discovery. This approach also allows students to address issues and questions related to equity\, diversity\, inclusion\, and decolonization. This interactive workshop will present concrete activities rooted in the process of intercultural learning. Participants will leave with practical ideas\, a checklist\, and a teaching handout. Encourage your students to show greater respect for others and foster the development of their plural identities! \nWhen Language Resonates: Music as a Cultural Speaker\nShauna Néro \nMusic isn’t just background noise: it’s a gateway to language\, culture\, and identity. Music is a powerful authentic resource that captures learners’ attention and immerses them in the target language. More than a simple teaching tool\, it stimulates communication\, critical reflection and cultural openness. By listening\, reacting to\, and analyzing songs\, students explore universal themes and identities\, discover other points of view\, and develop linguistic and intercultural skills. Through music\, learners interact with audio\, visual\, and cultural elements that enrich their experience\, such as lyrics\, rhythms\, themes\, stereotypes\, or cultural representations. The richness and diversity of music online offer countless opportunities to connect the classroom with the reality of linguistic communities around the world. This workshop will highlight inspiring examples of the Francophonie\, while proposing strategies and resources that can be adapted to any additional language (L+). Participants will leave with hands-on activities to engage their students\, nurture their creativity\, and inspire them to discover their own identities. \nThe Role of the Home Language in the L+ Classroom\nMonica Tang \nIn a plurilingual context\, what are the place and role of the home language in teaching our additional language (L+) students? How do we help our language learners grow new skills in a new language when the temptation to use the more familiar home language is ever present? Whether you teach English as a second language (ESL)\, French Immersion\, or beginner Spanish\, this workshop is for you. \nWhen we teach an L+\, our attitudes about the home language form a linguistic landscape in the classroom that is tied to the form of bilingualism/plurilingualism in which we believe. This belief\, in turn\, informs the kind of linguistic identity that we foster through our teaching. To help our students create positive and legitimate identities\, rather than deficit-based and monolingual identities\, it is important to pay attention to how we relate to their dominant languages and how we can strategically integrate them into our L+ pedagogies. K-12 teachers\, administrators\, and teacher educators are invited to come discuss. \nFeedback Worth Giving\nMarc-Albert Paquette \nThis interactive webinar is specifically designed for second and additional language teachers who want to maximize the impact of their feedback. It will explore how to move from a simple correction to feedback “worth giving”\, which is not only heard but actively sought by the learner. Beyond the theoretical principles\, we will examine three essential components of effective feedback that support students’ skill development: descriptive (observational)\, constructive (action-oriented)\, and targeted (to avoid cognitive overload). To anchor these concepts in the classroom reality\, we will work with concrete examples and authentic scenarios. Together\, we will analyze a test case to practice developing specific avenues for assistance. Participants will leave with practical strategies to build trust and provide feedback that truly energizes their students’ engagement and success.
URL:https://www.caslt.org/en/event/virtual-pl-day-jan-2026/
LOCATION:Zoom
CATEGORIES:Professional Learning
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