Nataly Shaheen: You Gave Us Words.

In this segment of Teacher Real Talk, Farnaz and Nataly talk about storytelling, community, and vulnerability through the lens of Stories of Home, an online anthology that centres personal narratives from learners and educators. They reflect on what it means to ask people to share parts of themselves in a language that may not feel fully theirs, and how vulnerability, trust, and risk shape classroom relationships in ways we don’t always anticipate.

They also touch on moments when community is tested, how those situations can be navigated, and what they reveal about expectations, boundaries, and responsibility.

Looking back on early teaching years, they also discuss how beliefs about ESL teaching can change over time, what practices no longer align with their values, and which pieces of commonly given advice may deserve reconsideration.

ESL= English as a Second Language

EAP= English for Academic Purposes

Stories of Home: https://storiesofhome.ca/#section-Home-dobARMNVJF

Theme music:

Periscope by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Artist: http://audionautix.com/