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A university campus can set the stage for much more than classroom learning. For many people, it’s a place for creating memories of new friendships, new cultural experiences and new learning challenges – big and small.

Even when the academic year came to close this past year, the campus continued to stay alive with cohorts of students travelling from different parts of the world to experience the city, get a taste for university life in Canada, and learn.

In July, the English Language Studies Department at the Faculty of Open Learning & Career Development welcomed close to 30 students from Colombia to participate in a rigorous, seven-week Language Educators’ program that included the completion of the four-course Certificate in English-medium Instruction and three additional professional development courses in language education.

This program is part of the multilingual policy of the Universidad del Atlántico in Colombia. A university known nationally and internationally for fostering a rich globalized culture on its campus, the program’s mission is to train educators who are leaders in foreign language education, and who show innovation, creativity and a deep understanding of cultural diversity.

In pursuit of its mission, the 30 students participating in the program, who were chosen from close to 150 candidates, attended classes six days a week where they were developing knowledge of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) strategies for teaching and building assessments. The EMI certificate was designed to address the need for bridging theory and practice-based training for teachers and training them to explore innovative ways to teach English or other languages through the content they teach. The students also received training on teaching English for Academic Purposes and Language Education Online to keep up with the growing demands of an evolving English teaching specialization.

“The main purpose of the training is to strengthen their linguistic, pedagogic and intercultural competences, since they will become English instructors of undergraduate students back home at Universidad del Atlántico and will need to use the skills they’ve developed here to cope with the challenges of teaching at home,” explains Abraham Sir, the coordinator of the immersion program and of the Bachelor’s Program in Foreign Languages from the Universidad del Atlántico. 

(Photo credit: Nick Pierce)

Their visit to the campus has been an experience of many firsts –  including  their first time on a plane - and what they’ve learned, as they describe, extends far beyond the classroom. From adapting to a scent-free policy to embracing the dorm experience with shared living spaces and forming new and unexpected friendships, one student describes his experience as a process of self discovery.

After travelling to Canada, “I now want to take risks and I feel like if I want  to do something, I won’t hold myself back. Someone [in our group] recently told me that I’m a risk taker and that I find new ways to do things. I didn’t know that about me before travelling to the campus and I’m grateful for that learning about myself.”

When they’re not designing lessons or thinking through how they’ll deliver classroom lectures, the students have been able to see the sights and experience all that our coastal city has to offer through a socio-cultural course titled English in Use, which encourages students to use English and engage with locals outside the classroom. As one student describes, “it’s really nice to see a lot of cultures. It’s a very open city. It’s really open and I really like that. People can express themselves here, I can see it on their faces and on their clothes. It’s really good to be in a country and a city that allows people to be themselves.”

As the students travel back to Colombia in early August, they’ll be returning more confident and knowledgeable teachers in the classroom, and as one student describes, “better versions of ourselves.”  

A university campus can set the stage for unexpected learning experiences that have a big and unintended impact. For these students, the fun, fear, laughter and adventure they have enjoyed has sparked new inspiration for their journey ahead. “This is the beginning of something bigger. We’re beginning our destiny.”