The Realize Forum is a comprehensive professional development program for ESL/EAL and settlement practitioners. It aims to build expertise in the sector thereby continually elevating the quality of services for the immigrant population. Launched in 2014, it has thus far attracted and engaged more than 900 registrants from all over Canada.

In its first two runs, it gathered expert educators, curriculum developers, and newcomer integration experts sharing on more than 30 topics ranging from effective use of online tools to issues on intercultural communication and ethnocentrism in English language instruction. Increased interaction was made possible via discussion boards and was running concurrently with the forum.

We have created Realize Video Gallery ( Realize 14 and Realize 15) – an active archive of  60 presentation recordings,  as well as  English Online Webinar Gallery that hosts recordings of our past webinars  2012-2015 ( Promising Practices in ESL and Teaching with Technology).   These resources are  accessible from realizeforum.ca .

View this project at realizeforum.ca.

Realize National Online Forum

Realize 2015

The second annual Realize! Forum that took place on January 23^rd – January 24^th, 2015 was a celebration of sharing, learning and collaborating on best practices in EAL/ESL .

As of the day of the Forum, we had 797 participants registered. The anticipation was rising after the Welcome message by Mr. Yves Saint-Germain attended by 138 ESL professionals from across Canada. Friday Keynote Address by Paul Holmes was simultaneously viewed by 265 ESL professionals on English Online Google+ page and YouTube channel. On Saturday, 155 participants joined us live on Google + and YouTube  to watch Nikos Theodosakis talking about projects that matter and engage in invigorating discussion on Twitter and Google +.

To trace impressions and highlights of the 2015 Realize! Forum, please have a look at Storify Forum Tweets Day 1 and Day 2.

A Team Effort

Realize! Team would like to thank everyone for contributing to this event.

• We thank our Funder for approving the 2nd Realize! event.
• We thank our Realize! Advisory Committee for their support and advice in the long path of putting the Forum together.
• We thank our talented team of 48 presenters who delivered 34 presentations on vast variety of current topics in EAL/ESL teaching.
• We thank our volunteer moderators who stayed behind the scenes but played an essential role in successful run of the sessions.
• And finally, we thank all the participants for engaging in vibrant and productive dialogue around the front line questions of TESL environment.

Realize 2014

The Realize! Conference 2014 that took place on January 23^rd – January 24^th, 2014 was a celebration of sharing, learning and collaborating on best practices in EAL/ESL .

As of the day of the Conference, we had 889 participants registered – a pleasantly surprising number for the first time event held by a small team of Realize!. With overwhelming interest growing before the Conference (111 registration submissions on January 23^rd, which was the peak number through the whole period), we did the last minute rearrangements and streamed Keynote Address with Google Handouts on Air. Our change of plans was well worth the effort as broadcasting allowed to accommodate 345 participants watching Lionel Laroche’s presentation and invigorating discussion on Twitter and Google +.

The anticipation was rising after the kick-off and the next day brought even more engagement.

Well Attended Sessions

Despite technical challenges that we experienced at the beginning, the Conference was carried out as planned with two sessions rescheduled and one repeated later that day.

Morning sessions turned to be the busiest ones with 273 attendees in total in concurrent rooms. While average number of participants during the Conference was 54 per session, in some of the sessions it reached up to 100. The busiest session of the Conference was Pronunciation: The Big Picture by Andrea Taylor and Sean Cavicchi gathering the audience of 103 participants.

A Team Effort

Realize! 2014 Team would like to thank everyone for contributing to this event.

• We thank our Funder for taking risk and approving the idea of the first Realize Conference.
• We thank our Advisory Committee  (NOCAC) for their support and advice in the long path of putting the Conference together.
• We thank our talented team of 39 presenters who delivered 27 presentations on vast variety of current topics in EAL/ESL teaching.
• We thank our moderators who stayed behind the scenes but played an essential role in successful run of the sessions.

And finally, we thank all the participants for engaging in vibrant and productive dialogue around the front line questions of TESL environment.

To trace impressions and highlights of the Conference, please have a look at Storify Conference Tweets.