Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition (PLAR) for TESL Canada

If you have prior learning and teaching experience, you may qualify for TESL Canada accreditation as an ESL instructor through PLAR.

What Is PLAR?

The teaching of second languages is an exciting, challenging and uniquely rewarding field. It is populated by an eclectic group of teachers, in terms of their countries of origin and personal interests, and also in terms of the sources and relative quality of their professional training. The national and global range of ESL/EFL training programs is so great that TESL Canada and TESL Ontario, the two most common sources of professional certification services for ESL teachers in Canada, cannot check out every single program that purports to prepare trainees for work in ESL classrooms.

The Centre for Continuing and Distance Education has a distinguished history in the field of prior learning assessment, and therefore TESL Canada refers to us any certification candidate whose prior training appears good, but comes from a source that has not been assessed and approved by the TESL Ontario or TESL Canada certification/program recognition committees. On their behalf, we undertake a process called “Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition,” or PLAR, which may save the candidate from having to start his or her training over from the beginning. Through PLAR, the value of work-based experiences and in-service learning can be assessed in addition to the contents of your past academic coursework. A PLAR assessment may save you from having to take any additional coursework, and should at least reduce the coursework required to a manageable minimum. Candidates who completed K-12 rather than adult practica and whose experience has largely been with children or teens rather than adults may still be required to carry out additional practicum training, but if the candidate has experience in teaching adults, such experience can reduce and may even eliminate such a need.

In order to be referred for PLAR, candidates must have verifiable university degrees and specific training in the teaching of English as a Second/Foreign Language. Formal academic training must consist of at least 75 hours of academic contact time, not including reading and assignment time, or in the case of distance programs the syllabus must demonstrate an amount of content similar to programs that provide at least 75 hours of academic contact time. The program must also show characteristics of being delivered through a bona fide educational organization. In order to be assessed, the candidate must receive a letter of referral from TESL Canada. This letter must be sent to the CERTESL program office, along with the completed PLAR application form (linked above), an adjudication fee, and a professional portfolio that will demonstrate the full range of the candidate’s knowledge of and skill in the TESL field.

A PLAR adjudicator will assess documentation of skills and knowledge which the PLAR applicant has acquired through coursework, inservice training and experience in order to determine what additional study (if any) may be necessary in order for the candidate to meet TESL Canada’s expectations. The adjudicator will examine the candidate’s professional portfolio and may interview the candidate about its contents before making one of two recommendations: either that the candidate’s certification application be accepted by the referring organization, or that the candidate’s certification application not be accepted until the candidate has filled specific gaps in his or her skills and knowledge. Unsuccessful candidates will be able to fill such gaps by taking relevant courses or modules through any program approved by TESL Ontario or TESL Canada which is willing to accommodate the candidate.

Note that for purposes of PLAR assessment, you do not have to apply to enter CERTESL. You will pay an adjudication fee (see the application form linked above), which will cover the costs of pre-application advising, administrative services, adjudication and communications. Therefore, you are advised to apply for PLAR only if you have reason to believe PLAR can lead to better results for you than would a normal academic transfer credit assessment for entry into CERTESL or another program approved by TESL Canada or TESL Ontario.

PLAR is your best choice if:

• You need to have a past practicum assessed, or
• You believe you may be able to receive PLAR recognition for coursework that equals or exceeds the academic requirements set by TESL Ontario or TESL Canada, or
• Your past coursework cannot be neatly sorted into direct course equivalencies within a program in which you might be able to complete your training, or
• You have acquired skills through on-the-job training or in-service training that cannot be assessed or recognized in an academic credit context.

TESL Canada PLAR is not possible if your previous academic training did not cover at least 65% of TESL Canada's recognized programs content rubric, which can be downloaded above.

What if I also want accreditation by TESL Ontario?

TESL Ontario has much more specific content requirements than TESL Canada, and requires slightly more academic time and substantially more practicum time than TESL Canada Standard II. Anyone who qualifies for TESL Ontario accreditation also qualifies for interim certification by TESL Canada. If you are in Ontario and believe that you qualify for TESL Ontario accreditation, then, please apply to TESL Ontario for membership and accreditation. Once you have your TESL Ontario accreditation certificate, use it to apply for TESL Canada certification; you will be eligible under a streamlined process.

If you don’t believe you quite meet TESL Ontario’s expectations but want to advance your process of qualifying for TESL Ontario accreditation at the same time as you achieve TESL Canada accreditation, and if your training approaches the TESL Canada Standard II level, then TESL Canada PLAR may help. For an additional fee, we will conduct a second review of your file from the TESL Ontario perspective and provide you with a Letter of Opinion that you may submit to TESL Ontario with a future accreditation application. The Letter of Opinion will identify gaps in your training and experience that you may wish to fill and document before applying to TESL Ontario for accreditation.

If you want us to prepare the Letter of Opinion for TESL Ontario, please print the TESL Ontario rubric of required skills linked to this page and use it as your guide when preparing your portfolio.

What is a Professional Portfolio?

A professional portfolio is a collection of material assembled by you that demonstrates and showcases a wide range of your skills as a TESL professional. A lot of work goes into a good portfolio, but it’s work that may be useful for purposes besides that of PLAR adjudication. Portfolios are becoming common in the education field, not only for Prior Learning Assessment purposes but also as a tool for marketing yourself to prospective employers.

For job-hunting purposes, portfolios often demonstrate a lot of “frills” such as student testimonials, samples of student work, and expensive paper or binders. For our purposes, your portfolio should be much more “workaday”. We appreciate good organization and an easy-to-flip-through format. We can’t consider student work or testimonials, so please don’t provide them, and please use the thinnest form of binding that will meet your organizational needs so that you don’t go broke on the postage or courier charges. Even for a TESL Ontario assessment, a stack of paper more than four centimeters high is likely to be overkill; some very clear and complete portfolios have been less than a centimeter thick.

Some of your portfolio’s contents:

• a curriculum vitae or resumé that stresses your teaching experience to date
• official transcripts from your university and TESL/TEFL training program, and
• letters of reference and/or positive performance reviews from past and present employers.

You will already have assembled these materials for your professional certification application. If TESL Canada has copies of these materials, don’t include them in your portfolio. TESL Canada will fax them to us when your portfolio arrives in our office.

We need either original or notarized copies of transcripts or employer documentation that you have not previously submitted to TESL Canada, and we do not return documents because of the administrative expense. If you know it will be hard for you to obtain these documents again, please provide notarized copies, NOT originals.

Because your PLAR adjudicator needs to examine the exact details of your academic and on-the-job learning, your portfolio should be much more comprehensive than your certification application.

Necessary additional material:

• a statement of your philosophy of ESL teaching
• detailed outlines of each TESL/TEFL-related course that you have taken, including lists of texts and other core resources, types of assignments and other methods of assessment used, and a very detailed set of information about course contents – an average of at least half a page of content information, in point form, for each ten hours of training.Include the number of lecture hours for each course (If you did not keep the outlines you may have received when you took your courses, please contact the program to request new copies.)
• exact information about all teaching practicum/internship experience, if any, including both adult and non-adult settings
• detailed supervision reports from past and present employers, particularly if practicum/internship experience does not match TESL Canada or TESL Ontario parameters so that you can demonstrate that you have had successful experience in relevant teaching situations.

You can and should add anything else that shows specific knowledge and practical abilities that may not be carefully detailed in the above-listed items:

• • Participation documents regarding any relevant in-service you have taken
  • Transcripts and course descriptions for other types of courses that enabled you to acquire relevant skills (for instance, adult education programs may include material on adult learning and development or classroom uses of appropriate technologies, relevant to some items on the TESL Ontario skills rubric)
  • Sample lesson plans and/or unit plans that you have created (see www.language.ca for sample plans; those you submit for PLAR will need to be more detailed, but the online samples will give you the general idea)
  • Assessment tools you have developed
  • short essays demonstrating your knowledge of the knowledge or skill in question
  • documentation of relevant workplace or volunteer experience; for instance, a person who has volunteered extensively in a LINC or ESL literacy program may provide documentation of that experience to prove appropriate knowledge of LINC or ESL literacy issues for TESL Ontario purposes, or a person who has done language assessment testing for Canada Immigration and Citizenship can include a letter from a workplace supervisor detailing that experience as evidence of assessment skills
  • copies of  articles you may have published
  • outlines or typescripts of presentations you may have given
  • samples of materials you have created for use with your students
  • reviews of key ESL  textbooks or other classroom resources that you have used
  • anything else that your imagination and professional history make possible.

The more complete your portfolio, the less time your adjudication will take, and the more likely it is that the results will be positive. Sometimes the adjudicator must request more material because the candidate has not provided enough solid information about exactly what skills he or she has acquired. We try to finish all adjudications in less than three weeks, but if you have to gather and send more material, the adjudicator will need more time, especially if sources of the additional documentation must come from overseas locations.

•  download the PLAR Application Form B2 for TESL Canada candidates in PDF format
•  download the TESL Canada Skills Rubric in PDF format
•  download the TESL Ontario Skills Rubric in PDF format

Mail your application form, portfolio and the relevant skills rubric with your best estimate of where your past training can be applied to the following address:

TESL-PLAR Program
Centre for Continuing and Distance Education
University of Saskatchewan
464-221 Cumberland Ave. N
Saskatoon, SK S7N 1M3

Please contact the CERTESL Academic Advisor, Shannon Storey, at shannon.storey@usask.ca or call 306.966.2085 if you have questions regarding your PLAR application.