Pre-Conference Workshops

Empowering Educators: A Journey of Reflection (AM1)

How can teacher educators support pre-service and in-service language teachers in developing reflective practices? Reflective teachers critically evaluate aspects of their classroom experience with a willingness to implement changes in response to what they learn.

This workshop will address the critical role teacher educators can play in promoting and facilitating teachers’ reflective practices. It will address the benefits and strategies of reflective practice, provide resources that workshop participants can use in teaching about reflective practice, and support them to model it in their own practice. Participants will receive access to newly developed materials based on the Teacher Effectiveness for Language Learning (TELL) framework: an action research guide, feedback forms, and classroom videos, tools designed to facilitate reflective practices of teachers at any stage in their career.

Presenters:
Thomas Sauer, Co-Director of Professionals in Education Advancing Research and Language Learning (PEARLL), University of Maryland
Rebecca Damari, Co-Director of Professionals in Education Advancing Research and Language Learning (PEARLL), University of Maryland 

Room Location: Think 4

Strategies for Supporting the Critical Intercultural Pedagogies of Language Teachers (AM2)

Like language teachers, language teacher educators and other professional learning designers face challenges in cultivating pedagogies that address the critical, intercultural dimensions of language teaching. Driving these challenges is the fact that from setting learning objectives to curating cultural representations to designing learning engagements and assessments, the possibilities are vast. In this workshop, we offer a framework and a set of strategies for helping language teachers develop confidence and effectiveness in enacting meaningful and critical intercultural pedagogy in their classrooms and programs.

Presenter:
Erin Kearney, Chair and Associate Professor, Department of Learning and Instruction, University at Buffalo (SUNY)

Room Location: Think 1

Preparing Secondary Dual Language/Immersion Teachers: Challenges and Opportunities (AM3)

Secondary (middle and high school) dual language/immersion (DLI) teachers face many unique challenges, such as lack of established curriculum and teaching materials, few immediate DLI colleagues, and shifting or under-established program goals and vision. This can make them feel isolated and overworked. Additionally, due to the fact that few secondary teacher education programs explicitly focus on DLI education, secondary DLI teachers are often trained as content teachers with little explicit training in dual language education. This results in a lack of knowledge and skill around language instruction and assessment. Put together, these circumstances make it very challenging for secondary DLI teachers to effectively address language and literacy development within their content area instruction. In this workshop, we will draw from our experiences in secondary-specific DLI teacher education to highlight common professional development goals of secondary DLI teachers and the strategies we use to build their confidence in integrating content and language within and across the secondary curriculum. Specific topics that need to be addressed in secondary DLI teacher education as well as strategies for doing so will be shared and practiced.

Presenters:
Cory Mathieu, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the ESL and Bilingual/Bicultural Teacher Education programs, University of Wisconsin - Green Bay
Sarah Hutton, Multilingual Learner Lead at Emerson Dual Language School, Minneapolis Public Schools

Room Location: Think 3

Preparing Teacher Candidates for Meaningful Work with New-to-Country Students: Strategies, Philosophies, and Dialogue (PM1)–this workshop has been canceled

With the recent marked increase in new-to-country students entering U.S. K-12 schools, both administrators and teachers alike have been forced to ask themselves how they are meeting the needs of newcomer emergent bilingual students.  This session will take a deep dive into how teacher-prep programs can prepare new teachers to (1) create radically inclusive educational and social spaces for newcomers and (2) be equipped to analyze the impacts of personal and system-wide beliefs and practices. This session is grounded in disrupting the Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture as described by author Tema Okun.

Presenters:
Annie Connor, Multilingual Newcomer Liaison at Andersen United Middle School, Minneapolis Public Schools
Sarah Hutton, Multilingual Learner Lead at Emerson Dual Language School, Minneapolis Public Schools

Developing and Expanding Seal of Biliteracy Programs for Greater Equity and Access (PM2)

Seals of biliteracy are now established in nearly every U.S. state, and serve as important symbolic and material recognition of students' competency in English and an additional world or heritage language. Significant gaps remain, however, with respect to equity and access to seals across region, school type and language. This workshop overviews some of these known challenges, and provides curricular, assessment and promotional tools that teacher educators can use to develop and expand seal access and programming.

Presenters:
Kendall King, Professor of Multilingual Education, University of Minnesota
Ayumi Stockman, World Language Coordinator, Minnesota Department of Education

Room Location: Think 3

Small Changes for Big Impact: Social Justice and the World Language Methods Course (PM3)

Social justice has become a “hot topic” in world language education over the past decade and in response, many methods instructors have included a social justice unit in their courses. Although this represents an important shift in our profession, social justice is an everyday part of our lives and should thus be an everyday part of the methods course. In this workshop, we will move beyond the social justice unit in the methods course to explore strategies for infusing social justice throughout course content and assessments. Examples from the methods course we teach for novice postsecondary world language teachers will serve as a starting point for identifying and implementing small changes that can have a big impact on the ways we address social justice in language education. Attendees should bring a methods course syllabus to the workshop for use in hands-on activities.

Presenters:
Mandy Menke, Associate Professor of Hispanic Linguistics and Director of Language Programs, Department of Spanish and Portuguese Studies, University of Minnesota
Kate Paesani, Associate Professor of French, Department of French and Italian, and Director, Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA), University of Minnesota

Room Location: Think 1