In this segment, From the Director’s Chair, Farnaz sits down with Shawna (EdD Candidate, Higher Education Leadership) to talk about the strange, often accidental paths that lead people into ESL. Starting with Shawna’s journey from studying biology (!!) to becoming an academic leader in EAL, they reflect on the role of chance, curiosity, and unexpected opportunities in shaping careers in language education.

They also explore the realities of moving between classroom teaching and leadership roles, including the delicate balance of advocating for teachers while carrying out rigid institutional responsibilities. Along the way, they unpack the purpose (and occasional awkwardness) of classroom observations, the anxiety they can bring, and how feedback, reflection, and a little bit of discomfort can push our teaching practice forward.

GTA: Greater Toronto Area

ESL= English as a Second Language

EAP= English for Academic Purposes

Shawna Shulman is the Associate Director, Student and Academic Success at Wilfrid Laurier International College. Before moving behind the scenes, she taught just about every kind of English imaginable at colleges and universities across the GTA. She first put on administrative shoes in 2014 as a teacher-coordinator at a Turkish university partnering with the York University English Language Institute, where she learned - sometimes the hard way - how institutions actually work. Since then, she’s been figuring out how to boss (and how not to boss), with mixed results but a love of the chaos of academic life.

⁠www.learningoffthesyllabus.com⁠

Instagram: @learningoffthesyllabus

Email: learningoffthesyllabus@gmail.com

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/