October 7th, 2020

Hello there everybody,
How are you all? I hope this post finds you safe and that you’ve been wearing your masks when going out! Please remember to wash your hands often! Meanwhile, I have been doing well, I have been struggling trying to keep myself updated with the readings my professors have been bombarding us with.

I’m interrupting my monthly posts with this particular post… because… while I’ve spoken about our Professional Portfolios before, but about the SPEAQ conference, last year (even though it was published here a mere few months ago, there are still so many things to explore about the program and its requirements. Today, I would like to tell you about QPAT.

What is it? 

I heard about QPAT a few years ago, only when thinking about conferences we are allowed to attend, but this summer, during EDUC 445 was when I heard even more about them. QPAT or APEQ (in French) is an association which represents teachers all over the province of Quebec, whether they are “homeroom” teachers or specialized teachers, like English Teachers. They also have different conferences that may be of interests to us. I personally very much enjoy that they have a New Teachers’ page as well as information about salary scales, which is very relevant to me at least…

They are basically Quebec Provincial Association of Teachers (so QPAT), or, in French, Association Provinciale des Enseignantes et Enseignants du Québec (so APEQ, not to be confused with the other APEQ associations on the internet though those ones seem pretty interesting as well).

Here is their Facebook page link, their Twitter handle and their Instagram page, in case you’re interested in following them on other platforms than their website.

Why does it matter to us as TESL students? 

Why, excellent question!

Well, as I explained in the previous post that I’ve made about this subject, we future teachers in the TESL program need to show that we are interested in professional development. I think that this is to encourage us to keep reflecting on our practice and to interest us into going to these kinds of conventions to perfect our professional competencies. Personally, from having been to a few of these already in my academic path, I’ve found it a great way also to reconnect with fellow classmates whom I don’t even get to see anymore because our classes are simply not the same anymore. It was a great way to reconnect and to spend the day to find out more techniques that other teachers have had, or to find out more interesting lesson plans that we could potentially use.

There was an announcement which said that the conventions organized by QPAT also count towards the conventions that we are allowed to go to. SPEAKING OF CONVENTIONS… there will be a webinar (which also counts) next week (October 16th, 2020). It will be ZOOM meetings, as you can see from this Facebook post:

It’s very nice because we’d be practicing social distancing, and we would be connecting with more teachers! Not only that, but this particular webinar is FREE. Win-Win situation, if you ask me! In order to log this into your Professional Portfolio, I suggest that you take a screenshot of your screen in lieu of a ticket, and have a reflection on the webinar that you attended.

If you’re not sure that you want to attend this one or you want to attend another one, please consider maybe going to SPEAQ, which will be held online November 6th and 7th, 2020.

For University students, it costs around 30$, but you will need to have a form signed (by a teacher in your program) to prove that you’re a full-time student.

I really hope this was helpful to you all,
Have a great day today and