Leslie Smith
Leslie Smith is no stranger to Shawnigan, but her role has changed this year and she “couldn’t be happier.” Eight years ago she began providing English Support tutoring at SLS in the evenings. “I called myself the ‘Vampire Teacher’ because I only saw the campus at night,” she laughs. “The following year John Sarsfield brought me into the light, selecting me to join friend and colleague Lesley Fraser in the English Support department.” This year Leslie Smith gets to experience even more Shawnigan life, as she adds Grade 8 and Grade 10 English to her schedule, joins the duty staff at Groves’ House, and continues to coach Junior Field Hockey.
After working in Career and Educational Counseling, Leslie completed her teaching degree at the University of Victoria. She then taught English and provided career counseling to Secondary students in the Cowichan Valley school district.
Leslie’s connection to SLS is a family affair, as her husband, Gordon, has been teaching woodworking, architectural drafting and graphic design at the School for 14 years, and their daughter Vanessa entered Grade 8 at Shawnigan last year. Their family includes 10- year-old son, Gavin. While Leslie says it was a dream and a goal to get back to the regular classroom setting, she is still passionate about her continued work in “English Support.”
“Lesley Fraser and I prefer the term English Academic Support over E.S.L. because, for many of our students, English is not a second language but a third. We are here to provide academic assistance and reduce the mystery of Canadian culture for those International students in need, and this year the demand is greater as we welcome a number of European students to our International mix.”
Joining a local Spanish language community group called “Circulo Espanol” really brought home to Leslie what challenges international students encounter. The group meets weekly for social and learning activities in Spanish, a language totally new to Leslie. “It’s fun and it stretches my mind, but some weeks I come home very tired mentally after a few hours of concentrating on acquiring this new language,” she says. “Then I’m reminded that many of my students are experiencing the demands and challenges of SLS in a language that is not wholly familiar, all day, every day.”
As well as re-entering the classroom, Leslie joined Groves’ House, where her daughter, Vanessa, is a day student. “Before I was a mother of one Groves’ Girl, and now I feel like an aunt to 54 Groves’ girls.”
To top off her hectic days, Leslie is in her third year of coaching Junior Girls field hockey. She says her introduction to the sport came as a Mom cheering on her daughter from the sidelines. Wanting to experience this wonderful sport herself, Leslie put her organizational skills to work and formed an over-35 women’s team for those new to field hockey or who are a bit rusty. She liked it so much that she decided to coach the grade 8 girls’ team, and enrolled in the appropriate coaches’ training. “It’s wonderful to see these girls participate in a team sport, sometimes for the first time, and to see the Grade 8s and new Juniors coalescing as a team on and off the field. We constantly encourage our students to take on new challenges, and this year I am excited to be taking on new challenges myself.”