Herzlichen Glückwunsch to OATG President 2017-19 Jimmy Steele who was named President of the Ontario Modern Language Teachers’ Association (OMLTA) for 2018-19. In addition to his time on the OATG Executive, Jimmy has been a Director of the OMLTA since 2010.

Jimmy (left) is pictured below with OMLTA Director Lisa Picerno. Wir gratulieren!

He is the first German teacher in nearly fifteen years to be President of the OMLTA, a fact that he highlighted proudly in his inaugural speech:

It is clear that OMLTA has played a major part in my professional learning since the start of my career and to now lead this organization as President is among my professional life’s greatest accomplishments. Having taught many levels of FSL and three International Languages, I hope that I can serve as an outstanding advocate for all of our members across all age groups and panels.  My qualifications, officially, are as a French and Spanish teacher – I’m 486424 on the OCT registry if you are interested in taking a peek – but I have also taught German for many years. Few people realize how strong, dynamic, and quite large the network of German-language educators is in our province and our country, and I have been welcomed with open arms and unconditional support into this field. I am so very proud to be the first president of the OMLTA in over a decade who is a German teacher. Ich bedanke mich recht herzlich für die Unterstützung und die Gemütlichkeit der Deutsch-als-Fremdsprache-Lehrkräfte und -Mitarbeiter von allen Ecken Kanadas, die mich immer unterstützen und für meine Schülerinnen, für meine Schüler und für mich da sind.