Conversation Circles at Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services
From the spring of 2015 to 2019 (pre-Covid 19), members of CFUW facilitated conversation circles at Polycultural Immigrant and Community Services (PICS). Generally, each year, 10-13 CFUW members volunteered as facilitators. While some of us are retired ESL teachers, many of us are non-teachers.
PICS provides a wide range of services and programs for newcomers to Canada, communities, adults, youth and seniors which include: settlement counselling, language programs, transition to employment, family violence and substance abuse, and health and wellness programs. PICS has five locations across the GTA: two in Scarborough, one in the old city of Toronto, one in Etobicoke and one in Mississauga. Before Covid, we met students at the Etobicoke location on Bloor Street east of Islington. For the past two years, we have been on Zoom.
Students are Canadian citizens, Permanent Residents (the old term was Landed Immigrants) or Convention Refugees. Some have been here for many years but have never before had the time to learn English and some arrived within the past few months. Some studied English before they immigrated and some did not. Some have come to join family members and some are totally alone in Canada. Some were able to immigrate in a planned way, choosing what to bring and saying their good-byes, while others ran for their lives in the clothes they were wearing.
Conversation Circles are informal gatherings where people come together to practice speaking English with the help of a volunteer facilitator. Circles provide an excellent way for English language learners to practice English speaking and listening. A topic is often proposed by our staff person, for example, “Tell us about a person you admire”, but the conversations range across a number of topics that are of interest to the students. As facilitators, we listen to students, helping them with vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation.
Over the years, we have met students from every inhabited continent and have heard stories both heartwarming–grandparents wanting to learn English after spending years providing day care for their grandchildren–and heartbreaking: currently, several students are from Ukraine and have family there.