Consultative Committee

Rosie Benning is known for her ability to create a positive classroom environment in which students are comfortable asking questions, making mistakes and having fun, all in the spirit of learning. She now works as the Language School manager at Collège Nordique in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories. Her knowledge of language pedagogy comes from her studies at the Université Paris Descartes and the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. She is the co-author of a student workbook for the Tłı̨chǫ language, one of the 11 official languages of the NWT.

Tom Cobb has taught ESL, trained ESL teachers, done research into the learning and teaching of ESL, and developed bilingual open software for doing all these things. It can be found on his well-known website Lextutor.ca under the twin headings of “data-driven learning” and “data-driven course/curriculum design.”

Dr. Karla Culligan is an Associate Professor at the Second Language Research Institute of Canada (L2RIC) in the Faculty of Education at the University of New Brunswick. She conducts research and teaches undergraduate and graduate courses in the areas of bi/multilingualism, second language pedagogy, mathematics education, teacher education and assessment. Dr. Culligan serves as a member of the National Council of the Canadian Association of Second Language Teachers and as a member of the Executive of the Canadian Association of Applied Linguistics.

Marie-Josée Hamel is a full professor and Director of Graduate Studies at the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute (OLBI) of the University of Ottawa. She has a PhD in language engineering and is a specialist in digital technologies for second language teaching and learning. She has over 30 years of experience in research, teaching and training in this field.

Martine Pellerin is a full professor of education at the University of Alberta’s Faculté Saint-Jean, where she served as Associate Dean for Research and Innovation from 2016 to 2022. She currently teaches courses in both the undergraduate and graduate programs. Her main areas of research are the hybridization of teaching methods and learning environments in the digital age, digital literacy, the use of AI for language teacher supervision, bilingual 3D interactive app development, digital citizenship and plagiarism. She received the 2018 IT ambassador Award from the University of Alberta for her technology leadership and a Certificate of Honour from REFAD for her contribution to remote French-language learning in Canada.

Patrick Plante is a professor of distance education and educational technology at Université TÉLUQ. His current research projects focus on serious games and gamification of content and on the development of a just-in-time support system for students with learning difficulties. He is director of the Centre de recherche et d'innovation en technologie éducative du Québec (i-TEQ) and co-director of the Observatoire du Numérique en Éducation (ONE). He is also responsible for the Discussions and Debates section of the journal Médiations et médiatisations (M&M).

Interested in issues surrounding the linguistic, academic and social integration of students from immigrant backgrounds, Sonia Robitaille began her career as a teacher in a welcome class before going on to work as a French-language learning consultant at the Centre de services scolaires de Montréal from 2012 to 2022. She has recently been involved in providing pre-service training to French second language (FSL) teachers as a visiting professor at UQAM’s Department of Language Didactics, where she co-ordinates and supervises internships.

Benoit Savard is a strategist and designer of learning and behaviour change ecosystems. Today, he is embarking on a new chapter in his career in collaboration with Laval University and HEC Montréal as a researcher focused on large-scale behaviour change. A graduate in business administration from the University of Sherbrooke, he holds an advanced executive certificate in innovation, technology and strategy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston and is pursuing studies in behavioural science at the University of Warwick in London. He is the founder of Science Comportamento, a company dedicated to applying behavioural science to drive social transformation.

For more than three decades Alan Wright has worked to improve curriculum quality and to lead improvements in teaching and learning in school systems, as well as at the postsecondary level. A graduate of Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, as well as McGill University and the Université de Montréal, Dr. Wright has introduced innovative practices in the leadership positions he has held at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, the University of Windsor in Ontario and the Université du Québec. His achievements have been recognized through awards presented by the Association of Atlantic Universities, the Assemblée Nationale du Québec and the Canadian Society for Teaching Learning in Higher Education.