Canva Beginner Workshop: Using Canva to Create Engaging Language Education Materials and Express Your Creative Ideas

by Andriana Holubka

   Canva is a free, beginner-friendly design tool that makes it easy to create professional-looking teaching materials*, even if you have no design experience at all. It’s a good gateway into design, even for people who know nothing about it, and a great tool to quickly take the idea from your mind and make it into a real thing. And, in the age of AI, when a single prompt can churn out thousands of low-quality images, fostering your own creativity is as important as ever.

    In this hands-on workshop, you will learn the basics of Canva and explore how it can be used to create engaging materials for your language classroom, including presentations, posters, worksheets, and other resources, while putting your own creative spin on it.

    We will start with a short introduction to Canva, looking at what it can do, the differences between the free and Pro versions, and some examples of how I use it in my own teaching and university work. We will also discuss how visual design can help make language classroom materials more engaging and memorable for students.

    The second half of the workshop is hands-on. You will create your own poster while learning how to use templates, customize colors and fonts, add images and graphics, organize elements, and resize, download, print, or share your finished work.

    By the end of the session, you will create your own Canva design and get some feedback from the presenter and other participants.

*This workshop is not affiliated with Canva.