Stakeholder Group

My early family life involved moving around Canada because of my father’s work in the grocery industry, and we had lived in half a dozen cities and towns across four provinces by the time I finished high school and eventually settled in BC. After my undergraduate studies, I travelled to Spain in the 1990s, where I lived and taught English language in Barcelona for six years. I returned to Canada to teach ESL in a settlement program for adult newcomers in East Vancouver while pursuing graduate studies in language and literacy education and a thesis in second language acquisition. Since coming to UFV in 2001, I have taught a range of English for academic preparation courses for domestic and international students, and I completed a doctoral program in curriculum studies in 2014 with a dissertation in teacher education. I served as ELS Department Head from 2017-2021.

Ph.D. Curriculum Studies (UBC)

M.A. Language and Literacy Education (UBC)

B.Ed. Adult Education (Alberta)

Diploma Superior de Español como Lengua Extranjera (Salamanca)

Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages Inservice Diploma (VCC)

Diploma in Adult Education (VCC)

Certificate for Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Adults (Cambridge/RSA) 

Professional Certification

Alberta Teaching Certificate

BC Provincial Instructor Diploma

TESL Canada Professional Certificate 4

Professional Memberships:

BCCAT ESL Articulation Committee

BC Teachers of English as an Additional Language

Canadian Association for Teacher Education

Canadian Society for the Study of Education

TESL Canada Federation

UFV Memberships:

Senate

Undergraduate Education Committee

Indigenization Committee

I believe teaching certainly involves various forms of abstract knowledge (episteme) and skills (techne), but because it invariably takes place in very concrete educational situations and with other people, good teaching practice seems to centre on a kind of practical wisdom that Aristotle (2004) called phronesis. In one sense, practical wisdom refers to a person’s ability to see and to judge and to act ethically in particular situations (Dunne, 1997, Nussbaum, 2001), but phronesis is also reflective of a wise teacher’s commitment to something Maxine Greene (1973) calls “the pursuit of the worthwhile”. 

In the classroom, I see myself as a mentor rather than a dispenser of knowledge or technician. I believe it is important to provide students with clear curricular guidelines for any course of instruction, and I strive to provide clarity and detail in my course syllabi and assignment descriptions and transparency with regards to my evaluation practices. At the same time, I value variety and flexibility in my approach to teaching, and I supplement course content with materials drawn from current local and international events, history, literature, philosophy, and popular culture because I think these kinds of resources can help people to link abstract educational content to their own lives.

I use and adapt different teaching strategies and educational technologies to address different learning styles and to make my lessons more engaging, and I encourage my students to explore topics that are of interest to them in completing course assignments and projects. I respect my students, and I strive to listen to them and to provide each one with personal attention and encouragement.  

Aristotle. (2004). The Nicomachean ethics (J.A.K. Thomson, Trans., Rev. ed.). London, UK: Penguin Books.

Dunne, J. (1997). Back to the rough ground: Practical judgment and the lure of technique. Notre Dame, USA: University of Notre Dame Press.

Greene, M. (1973). Teacher as stranger: Educational philosophy for the modern age. Belmont, USA: Wadsworth.

Nussbaum. M. (2001). The fragility of goodness: Luck and ethics in Greek tragedy and philosophy (Rev. ed.). New York, USA: Cambridge University Press.

Second Language Acquisition

Teaching English as a Second Language

English for Academic Preparation    

Curriculum Studies

Teacher Education

Professional Ethics in Teaching 

Student Research Assistant Grant: University of the Fraser Valley (2010) 

Graduate Fellowship Award: University of British Columbia (2009)

Ph.D. Tuition Fee Waiver Award for Outstanding Academic Achievement: University of British Columbia (2005-2008)

Crocker, K., Jope, G., & Linsey, R. (2021, April). The future is so bright we need shades? A look at the short and long term future of the EAL industry. Plenary panel presentation at the BC TEAL Annual Conference: Vancouver, Canada.

Jope, G. (2015, May/June). Grasping phronesis: The fabric of discernment in becoming an ethical teacher. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for Teacher Education/Canadian Society for the Study of Education. University of Ottawa: Ottawa, Canada.

Jope, G. (2014, November). Researching teaching and teacher learning in an ethical and literary perspective. Roundtable Discussion on Methodologies and Innovative Approaches to Data Gathering and Analysis at the BC Campus/OpenEd Resources Symposium on Scholarly Inquiry into Teaching and Learning Practice.  Simon Fraser University: Vancouver, Canada.  

Jope, G. (2007, May/June). What’s a good teacher to do? Aristotelian judgment and Arendtian action. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Canadian Association for Teacher Education/Canadian Society for the Study of Education. University of Saskatchewan: Saskatoon, Canada.   

Jope, G. (2001, May). Reflections on transit: Crossing cultures as an English language teacher. Paper presented at the Investigating Our Practices Conference on Teacher Research. University of British Columbia: Vancouver, Canada.

Jope, G. (2018). Becoming ethically responsive in initial teacher education. Research in Education, 100,(1), 65-82.

Jope, G. (2014). Grasping phronesis: The fabric of discernment in becoming an ethical teacher (doctoral dissertation). University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.    

Jope, G. (2006). Teacher education on the web: A survey of Canadian preservice teacher education websites. Report prepared for the Centre for the Study of Teacher Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

Jope, G. (2003). Teacher crossings: Reflections on multilingual lives in language teaching (master’s thesis). University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

Jope, G. (2000). The thief, the astronaut, and the adult English language teacher. English Quarterly,32, 33-35.