Dr. Jelena Marelj

What will my child walk away with?  The ability to speak with genuine clarity and conviction, backed by an understanding of how language actually persuades an audience. My students leave able to build an argument, not just deliver lines.

What can families expect?  Rigorous, research-grounded coaching from someone who has trained graduate instructors on communication, not just students. I bring the same standard of clarity to every speaker I work with.

What does class actually feel like?  Vibrant and dialogue-driven. Students are expected to actively engage with ideas and with each other, challenging assumptions and defending their own point of view out loud.

How do you challenge a curious mind?  I draw on my research in discourse pragmatics to show curious students exactly how language choices shape how an audience receives them, then ask them to apply that awareness to their own speaking.

Credentials and Experience  I earned my Honours BA from the University of Toronto, my MA from McGill University, and my PhD from Queen’s University, where my research in discourse pragmatics and early modern literature was supported by a SSHRC doctoral fellowship. I am the author of Shakespearean Character: Language in Performance (Arden Shakespeare/Bloomsbury Press, 2018). For over a decade I have taught professional communication, writing and rhetoric, and literature at Sheridan College, and I previously supported graduate teaching assistants as an Educational Development Associate at Queen’s University’s Centre for Teaching and Learning.