2017 Conference

In this practice-oriented session for secondary teachers, presenters share specific text analysis, reading comprehension, and writing strategies focused on helping ELLs comprehend high school science content. Explicit teaching of disciplinary language associated with high school science scaffolds all students’ understanding of content and provides pathways to science-based careers.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

Setting high expectations for English Learners drives our work. ELs must access language vis-a-vis content through rigorous learning. The Boston Public Schools ensures that Cognitively Demanding Tasks (CDTs) are embedded in all instruction. Our ELD Framework has been developed with CDTs as the cornerstone of instruction.

Discussion Session (45 minutes)

Academic Language in Content Areas

Inspired by the Writing Workshop model and the opportunity to extend students’ language acquisition through digital literacy, students were engaged in a digital memoir project. They shared personal experiences, making sense of their past through the creation of i-Movies.  This workshop provides tools for implementing digital memoirs in your classroom.

 

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

Looking for ways to build literacy in your SLIFE class? This session provides SLIFE teachers with concrete ideas for creating and expanding upon the Language Experience Approach (LEA) to build literacy routines in the classroom.  Walk away with strategies you can use for a variety of content areas.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Specific Populations (ELLs with disabilities, SLIFE, etc.)

In this session, participants will engage in a hands-on activity related to the development and implementation of culturally and linguistically responsive numeracy assessments for the identification of students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE).

INVITED SPEAKER (45 minutes)

Specific Populations (ELLs with disabilities, SLIFE, etc.)

INVITED SPEAKER (45 minutes)

Knowing our Students

In this session, the speakers describe their work in developing and facilitating a student-run literary journal for second language writers. The speakers offer reflections on the benefits of celebrating and publishing second language writing, and engage the audience in considering how a similar project might be implemented in their programs. 

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Reading, Writing, Literacy

While incredibly valuable, academic oral discourse is often neglected in classrooms, with priority given to reading and writing.  However, oral language essential in pushing students to work together to negotiate meaning.  This session presents an instructional framework to scaffold academic oral language discourse with newcomer ELLs in a secondary setting.  

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Academic Language in Content Areas

With the increase of inclusive classrooms, ESL and ELA teachers must find ways to support students' acquisition of English as well as mastery of ELA standards. Unfortunately, that can be challenging in many schools. This session provides resources and strategies to develop productive collaboration that benefits ELLs.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

The session presents research from the past 15 years on teachers' beliefs about ELLs and their perceptions of their preparedness to teach ELLs.  The session will include a presentation of findings and invite discussion on how language teachers observe and talk with colleagues about the intersection of beliefs and practice.

Paper/Report (45 minutes)

Teacher Education/Professional Development

 

This presentation will look at co-teaching strategies to make a high school Humanities curriculum engaging, relevant, and rigorous for ELD 1 and 2 students. There will be discussion of co-planning techniques, sharing of student work, and opportunities to brainstorm with colleagues about using co-teaching in your practice.

Interactive Workshop (90 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

Engaging in informal dramatic performance, especially in the form of mock trials and readers’ theater, ESL and Humanities students work together to achieve a number of course-specific goals including improved English language skills and a deeper critical examination of character, motivation and conflict.

Panel (45 minutes)

Listening, Speaking, Pronunciation

Presenters will share their work in how teaching a successful social emotional learning program can help students engage in academic conversations and learn academic language from one another.  Presenters will share strategies for classroom community building as well as language learning activities that rely on social competencies.

Paper/Report (45 minutes)

Academic Language in Content Areas

English Language Learners in a high-poverty urban high school, and students in an affluent suburban school who were studying Spanish, engaged in a year-long bilingual letter exchange and ultimate face-to-face meeting. This session features student work samples, video, and teaching materials plus an analysis of challenges, pitfalls, and ultimate successes.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Family and Community Connections

Cultivating Oral Language and Literacy Talent in Students (COLLTS), a bilingual preschool curriculum, promotes the development of emergent literacy, oral language, and background and conceptual knowledge through the use of interactive reading. Session attendees will be introduced to the research base for COLLTS and an overview of the curriculum materials.

Panel (45 minutes)

Reading, Writing, Literacy

Taking the view that cultural curiosity is a prerequisite to successful teaching of ELLs, a bicultural group of Salem educators developed a workshop on the history, culture, immigration patterns, and self-identity of the people of the Dominican Republic for mainstream teachers. Learn how this collaborative effort grew, flowered, and spread.

 

Panel (45 minutes)

Knowing our Students

The language of quantitative reasoning is challenging for ELLs because of the specialized vocabulary and grammatical knowledge that is required. In this workshop, we will identify specific word- and sentence-level features utilized when reading and writing about quantitative information. We will then provide ideas for the instruction of these features.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Academic Language in Content Areas

During this interactive session, participants will have an opportunity to explore recent ESE Department guidance related to English learning students with disabilities (EL/SWDs) and those English learners (ELs) suspected of having disabilities, such as high incidence learning disabilities.

INVITED SPEAKER (45 minutes)

Specific Populations (ELLs with disabilities, SLIFE, etc.)

Addressing the specific needs of SLIFE and beginner ELs while holding them to high expectations poses a great challenge for educators, especially as schools face ongoing enrollment. This session aims to introduce a curriculum model that has proven to be effective with SLIFE and beginner ELs at the secondary level.

 

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Specific Populations (ELLs with disabilities, SLIFE, etc.)

Students will present about the positive impact that comes from changing the designation English Language Learner to Multilingual Student and advocate for schools to adopt a “strengths based” outlook on multilingualism. Students will lead participants through activities that will challenge perceptions around Multilingual Students.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Knowing our Students

According to the National Survey of Children’s Health (2014), half of the nation’s student population are experiencing trauma, violence and chronic stress. Learn research-based ways to create a comprehensive and collaborative approach for building an instructional environment and practice that supports families’ assets and students’ strengths and academic achievement.

Interactive Workshop (90 minutes)

Specific Populations (ELLs with disabilities, SLIFE, etc.)

This year, I piloted an AP English class for ESL students who scored a 4.5 or higher on their overall 2015-2016 ACCESS scores. Students advocated for themselves and are set to take the AP test in May 2017. Students will present obstacles and victories. 

Panel (45 minutes)

Reading, Writing, Literacy

Do you have questions about your students' rights and their families' rights in the immigration system? Is the current immigration environment impacting the students in your classroom? Learn what rights immigrants - including children - have in the immigration system, how to spot common issues, and where to turn for help. 

INVITED SPEAKER (45 minutes)

Policy and Advocacy

Pronunciation is an essential aspect of learning the English language. However; how do we teach students sounds he/she cannot hear? This research-based presentation will explore techniques teachers can use in classrooms to aid students with their pronunciation. This will show speech-language pathology pronunciation techniques altered to fit an ESL classroom.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Listening, Speaking, Pronunciation

This session presents research- and practice-based insights into robust professional training focusing on linguistically responsive pedagogy that can serve as a powerful means for improving ELLs’ academic achievement. Particularly, four essential components of effective professional development for mainstream teachers will be explored.

Discussion Session (45 minutes)

Teacher Education/Professional Development

Teachers will examine how explicitly teaching signal words in the upper grades gives ELs access to grade level content and connects to academic discourse and grammar. Teachers will identify signal words to break down the language demands of a unit and brainstorm ways signal words can enhance units of study.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Academic Language in Content Areas

How are language and culture intertwined in the postmodern ESL classroom? Come learn about the sociocultural theory and its practical ramifications for the 21st century classroom. Based on new interpretations of Vygotsky’s works, we will offer specific ideas for pedagogy, research, and assessment that you will be able to use.

Paper/Report (45 minutes)

Teacher Education/Professional Development

We are eager to share our ten years of experience using storytelling/story acting in Kindergarten with all those searching for an authentic method to increase oral language development. We will share video examples from our classrooms, instructions on how to get going, and tools to monitor language development.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

The language needed to engage in academic discourse can seem out of reach for beginning ELLs and SLIFE. This session aims to demonstrate how the effective use of sentence stems at the secondary level can be integrated into rigorous interactive activities that facilitate academic language acquisition.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Listening, Speaking, Pronunciation

For an English Learner, there are many other socio-cultural factors that impact a student's learning in the classroom. This session will explore what it means to be culturally responsive educators, espcially in today's politically charged nation, so that students feel affirmed in the classroom cultures we cultivate. 

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Teacher Education/Professional Development

Is "immigrant" a bad word? Rhetoric says yes, data says no. Teachers can better serve immigrant students when they know them and when they work with an asset-based perspective of what immigrants can accomplish. The latest research will introduce the many contributions immigrants make through data, stories and reflection.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Knowing our Students

International students now test with PTE Academic instead of TOEFL or IELTS to support their applications to universities.  PTE preparation genuinely helps students improve English skills, not just test-taking skills. 

This session introduces how Massachusetts administrators and teachers can prepare students for PTE Academic.

Commercial Presentation (45 minutes)

Program Administration

Pronunciation is integrally related to other language skills but is hard to teach. Technology can facilitate pronunciation teaching and integrate these closely connected skills that are otherwise taught in isolation. This presentation proposes steps to bring about the necessary progression to a technology and pronunciation based integrated skills classroom.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Listening, Speaking, Pronunciation

In 2016, the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth began offering a four-course, add-on certification program for ESL. This presentation discusses the development process, some of the lessons learned from the initial roll-out of the courses, and feedback from the first teacher cohort to complete the certificate.

Discussion Session (45 minutes)

Teacher Education/Professional Development

In this interactive workshop, sponsored by the Massachusetts Reading Association, teachers will learn how to increase reading comprehension through two guided inquiry tools (RAN and Data Chart).  These tools are used, in turn, to empower students to write notes and summaries in response to their own questions. 

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Reading, Writing, Literacy

Oral language development is crucial to the development of a second language. For our elementary and secondary English Learner students, the use of oracy - strong, academic oral language - allows them to build competency in all domains of language. By focusing on oral language development students make linguistic leaps to fluency.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

At the International High School at Lafayette, a Brooklyn public high school dedicated to newly arrived immigrants from all over the world, five teenagers strive to master English, adapt to families they haven't seen in years, and create a future of their own while coming of age in a new land. A documentary film by Jean-Michel Dissard & Gitte Peng.

FILM SCREENING (90 minutes)

Knowing our Students

Administrators and teachers familiar with DESE SLIFE Guidance will learn how to move to practical implementation. All aspects of program development and curriculum design will be addressed. Participants will also create individual/group plans; a laptop is encouraged, but not required.

Interactive Workshop (90 minutes)

Specific Populations (ELLs with disabilities, SLIFE, etc.)

In this workshop for mainstream and ELL teachers, participants will learn about a scaffolded approach to teaching content and language at the same time. They will then be guided through the initial steps of designing a unit that supports diverse students’ disciplinary literacy development. Sample materials will be provided.

Interactive Workshop (90 minutes)

Reading, Writing, Literacy

This session will explore ways to familiarize students with the ACCESS assessment. Learn how to prepare students for the exam by unpacking the ACCESS rubrics and creating authentic ACCESS style assessments that support your curriculum.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

This session provides a forum for the discussion of current issues in teacher education for ESL and SEI. Faculty from various teacher preparation programs initiate conversations about preparing K-12 teachers to meet the needs of English learners and the changing roles and expectations of licensed ESL and SEI endorsed teachers.

MATSOL SESSION (45 minutes)

Teacher Education/Professional Development

Graphic novels offer high-interest books combining reading and visuals. This combination supports comprehension while emphasizing incidental learning. In this session, we explore the ways we have used graphic novels with intermediate to advanced learners in grades 6-9, discussing a broad range of novels from classics to memoirs to historical topics.

Panel (45 minutes)

Reading, Writing, Literacy

Learn how you can enhance English language teaching capacity abroad through 10-month paid teaching fellowships designed by U.S. Embassies for experienced U.S. TESOL professionals. As an English Language Fellow, you can provide English language instruction, conduct teacher training, and develop resources. Join us to hear from program staff and alumni.

Discussion Session (45 minutes)

Teacher Education/Professional Development

Fifty percent of what learners do is listen. In this theoretically-driven, qualitative study, 4 experienced ELTs from university-based IEPs were observed and interviewed to examine what kind of attention they give to teaching this imperative skill within integrated-skills classes. Findings reveal a mismatch between theory and practice, and solutions are explored.

Paper/Report (45 minutes)

Listening, Speaking, Pronunciation

New England Arts for Literacy Project is a dynamic initiative that provides teachers with tools like The Performance Cycle framework. The framework engages students by building a classroom community of learners centered on meaningful text. ESL teachers connect literacy and arts creating a positive climate and high quality arts-integrated units.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Teacher Education/Professional Development

This presentation will highlight principles and practices for increasing elementary ELs’ writing achievement beyond sentence and paragraph frames. Specific examples will be shared that develop writers at various proficiency levels and grade levels. The successful implementation of these principles and practices in a Summer Program for ELs will be shared.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

This presentation will highlight current data on ELs including demographics, achievement, and trends. This will be followed up with updates on current and future projects from OELAAA including all things RETELL, WIDA, Title III and other topics.

INVITED SPEAKER (45 minutes)

Policy and Advocacy

Drawing on eighteen semesters of experience mentoring student teachers, the presenter shares examples, strategies, and tips for maximizing the experience for everyone involved. How do you balance responsibilities to your students and the student teacher? Participants will also have a chance to share their own questions, frustrations, and ideas.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

Hybrid courses offer English-as-a-second-language students the opportunity to experience what it’s like to take a course online and face-to-face. They have the benefit of building connections in the classroom and increasing their skills in self-directed learning, thus creating greater learner autonomy, and preparing them for university in America, and beyond.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Media and Technology

This panel will report on the implementation of the ESL Model Curriculum Units in their districts. Panelists will describe the status of implementation in their districts, and then discuss the rewards, challenges, and promises of implementation and answer questions from the audience.

INVITED SPEAKER (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

Academic conversations not only help build an EL’s vocabulary and language but also result in deeper discussions and understanding of the material discussed. This session provides a format to implement academic conversations in the classroom, ways to assess academic conversations, and the impact academic conversations have had in one community.

 

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

This workshop highlights the preliminary findings from a Design-Based Research study to promote active participation, critical thinking, and empathy with reference to the notions of local and global citizenship for English Language Learners using instructional scaffolding strategies in whole-class, text-based discussions in a fifth-grade mainstream classroom.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

This session chronicles the journey the Rafael Hernández PreK-8 Dual Language School has taken to implement a cohesive Bridging instructional approach. Bridging is a student-centered, teacher-designed approach that allows for bilingual students to build metalinguistic connections across both languages.  After attending the MABE 2016 Conference, we designed and launched a school-wide Phased Bridging Implementation Process to explore, align, and integrate Bridging strategies to support the Spanish and English language development of our bilingual learners.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

Salem High School’s program for English Learners has undergone significant changes during the past two years. In this session, participants will learn the backwards planning that has occurred to drive three levers in the direction of change: data driven instruction, parent and community engagement, and improved school culture.

Panel (45 minutes)

Program Administration

Our weekly Robotics Club for third-grade ELLs integrates English Language Development and social emotional learning with robotics (programming and building LEGO Mindstorms EV-3 Robots).  During this interactive workshop, students will present their robots, programs and literacy portfolios.  Curriculum based on WIDA key uses, robotics and SEL will also be shared.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

Based on new book by Jana Echevarria, No More Low Expectations, this session will take participants through scaffolding practices that enable students to have grade level experiences at any ELD level.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Standards Implementation (CCSS, WIDA, etc.)

Participants will become familiar with how to create digital stories with ELLs. This presentation provides the rationale of utilizing digital stories and gives step-by-step guidance in bringing this culturally competent, instructional strategy into one’s classroom. Digital stories can be used in any content and with a range of linguistic abilities. 

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Teacher Education/Professional Development

Responding to text-dependent questions in the social studies class can be extremely overwhelming for beginner English learners, especially SLIFE, due to text complexity. This session aims to demonstrate effective strategies that enable beginner ELs and SLIFE to read, comprehend and apply content material while developing higher-order thinking skills.

 

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Specific Populations (ELLs with disabilities, SLIFE, etc.)

This seminar addresses ways to teach L2 learners to be active, critical readers of literary texts. We will demonstrate how to teach better reading and vocabulary acquisition strategies, facilitate effective discussions of readings, and guide learners toward more in-depth analysis of the text.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Reading, Writing, Literacy

Students become active members of a learning community by engaging in conversation, partner work, self and group reflection in learning tasks with compelling topics found in authentic texts.  Using cooperative structures allow students to participate in collaboration, show respect, and build trust while engaging in academic discourse.  

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

This presentation shares findings from a study of six exemplary preschool classrooms for young DLLs across three program types: public Pre-K, Head Start, and private programs.  Drawing on interviews, observations, and videotaped model lessons, study findings show how exemplary teachers hold asset-oriented beliefs that drive intentional practices for young DLLs.

Paper/Report (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

ELL teachers in low-incidence schools often face ‘visibility’ problems: working in multiple schools, teaching in ‘closets,’ dealing with insufficient budgets, and encountering skepticism from classroom teachers.  This presentation offers concrete suggestions for raising awareness of ELL’s critical role among classroom teachers, the administration, and other school employees.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Teacher Education/Professional Development

Participants will discuss ways to close foundational language gaps for newcomers, transient and SLIFE students through a peer tutoring program. Participants will review the initial identification process, participate in vocabulary and language interventions led by students, and discuss the success of the program by analyzing pre and post assessments.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

In this presentation we will deliver updates on EL Curriculum, Professional Development, and RETELL.

INVITED SPEAKER (45 minutes)

Standards Implementation (CCSS, WIDA, etc.)

INVITED SPEAKER (45 minutes)

Knowing our Students

What will pre-service teachers list as concerns/anxieties and alternately favorable/promising aspects of teaching the EL population? Analysis of more than 800 responses yields the converging elements of beliefs, perceptions, and attitudes towards the EL population and implications for teacher behavior and student achievement suggesting significant implications for credential preparation programs.

Paper/Report (45 minutes)

Teacher Education/Professional Development

Gain an awareness of the educational and social contexts of your Chinese, Korean, and Japanese students, and the experiences they bring. Learn how to consider cultural context to better integrate these populations of students into your classroom, and to support them and their families.

Discussion Session (45 minutes)

Knowing our Students

Many educators are adept at implementing instructional strategies at the word and sentence levels of language. This workshop will build upon that knowledge by delving into the discourse (or message) level. Participants will have the opportunity to analyze examples of authentic communication tasks and work collaboratively to design their own.

Interactive Workshop (90 minutes)

Academic Language in Content Areas

This presentation provides practical methods for integrating tasks, small projects and routines into the academic environment to promote linguistic and cultural identity. Participants will see a showcase of examples of easily-implementable techniques that help students feel safe enough to take necessary risks and acquire concrete strategies for the classroom.

Paper/Report (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

Understanding relationships between sociopolitical perspectives/climate and education is a crucial component of the teaching profession. This workshop presents an assignment where Teacher Candidates critically discuss and apply current events, policies, and perspectives on teaching bilingual students. Participants will complete a sample assignment and discuss its utility in ESL/SEI Teacher Education.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Teacher Education/Professional Development

Boost student talk time with hands-on games that use dice, poker chips, and beach balls. With a combined twenty years of experience in ESL classrooms, the presenters will teach 6 fun, foolproof activities to get students moving and speaking with greater fluency and accuracy about topics relevant to their lives. 

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

For ELLs, recognizing and remembering science vocabulary is insufficient in reaching the CCSS, NGSS, and WIDA demands. Rather, in-depth word knowledge is fundamental to demonstrate standard mastery. This workshop introduces strategies for comprehensive science vocabulary instruction. Such strategies can benefit ELLs as they help understand, learn, and communicate science content.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Academic Language in Content Areas

Immigrants face many new challenges under a Trump Administration. It is hard for many students to understand the changes and to separate fact from rumor. This workshop will look to cut through the confusion, examine how policy changes will impact students’ lives, and what they can do to protect themselves.

INVITED SPEAKER (45 minutes)

Policy and Advocacy

In this session, the speakers report on comparative classroom research with international college students and U.S. resident multilingual high school students. The study considered how students might learn to build writing stamina and produce longer written texts through methods that combined systemic functional linguistics and creative writing.

Paper/Report (45 minutes)

Reading, Writing, Literacy

Explore the advantages of explicit attention to language form and function in the content classroom while learning ways to authentically integrate language into the math, science, and social studies classroom. This session will explore ways that combining content and language can help students meet the demands of the Common Core.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Academic Language in Content Areas

Accessing classic works of literature is integral to academic success, especially in high school. This session aims to demonstrate effective strategies that enable SLIFE and beginner ELs to access and comprehend great works of literature. Specific attention will be given to developing literacy skills and building confidence.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Specific Populations (ELLs with disabilities, SLIFE, etc.)

In this session, members of the MATSOL Community College Faculty Network will facilitate a discussion of topics relevant to Massachusetts community college ESL programs. Topics include: ESL services and resources at our colleges; changes to curriculum, levels, or awarding of credit; advocating for ESL students and faculty; and the future of community college ESL in Massachusetts. Anyone interested in community college or related higher education issues is welcome!

MATSOL SESSION (45 minutes)

Policy and Advocacy

It is essential that ESL teachers and General Education teachers collaborate to develop students’ language through content.  This presentation will feature two ESL teachers and two general education teachers who will share information about the integration model that is used in their district as well as their successful collaboration techniques.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

Working in pairs, content area and ESL teachers created WIDA-aligned units based on the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) Collaboration Tool. Units were developed using Understanding By Design (UBD) planning and technology-based supports for interaction among partners and teams, including Google Classroom and the video conferencing system, Zoom. 

Panel (45 minutes)

Academic Language in Content Areas

We will share findings from a survey of graduates of a TESOL Masters program, with a focus on how schools and teacher mentors can continue the learning of new ESOL teachers with bridges from what new teachers already know and believe to practical application and ongoing reflection in the classroom.

Paper/Report (45 minutes)

Teacher Education/Professional Development

Have you considered offering electives to give ELLs more choices and increase motivation? Learn what should happen for Electives to be meaningful for level progression; what to keep in mind when creating Electives, registering students, and grading SLOs and assessments; and the tangible benefits of Electives, based on real evidence.

Paper/Report (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

For teachers of English Language Learners, this presentation will model ways to develop oral academic vocabulary in English through scaffolded, engaging discussions about fine art images and real-world photos from around the globe and across time. Strategies will be demonstrated and practical handouts will be shared.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

This session will provide an overview of the Next-Generation Interactive Solution for English Language Learners. Preview this fully online content available for your students anytime, any place using a desktop, laptop,tablet or smart phone. Take a look at the Innovative Writing Evaluation Technology, e-rater now available in English Discoveries OnLine.

Commercial Presentation (45 minutes)

Reading, Writing, Literacy

SLIFE and beginner ELs who successfully overcome the immense challenges of building English proficiency in newcomer programs often face additional academic and socio-emotional setbacks when transitioning into mainstream classrooms. This session aims to introduce an effective model for ensuring a successful transition for students through collaboration, awareness, and professional development.

 

Panel (45 minutes)

Policy and Advocacy

This interactive workshop will explore aspects of Haitian educational culture that are helpful to teachers working with Haitian immigrant students here. Learn ways to support students and connect with their families from a teacher who has traveled to Haiti and is building a partnership with a community there.

Interactive Workshop (90 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

At the International High School at Lafayette, a Brooklyn public high school dedicated to newly arrived immigrants from all over the world, five teenagers strive to master English, adapt to families they haven't seen in years, and create a future of their own while coming of age in a new land. A documentary film by Jean-Michel Dissard & Gitte Peng.

FILM SCREENING (90 minutes)

Knowing our Students

Using the Attaining Core Content for English Language Learners (ACCELL) approach, this session will introduce participants to the use of scaffolding techniques, in particular, for background knowledge, vocabulary, and interactive, text-dependent discussions, to help English learners better comprehend more complex text. Session includes reflections on applicability to one's own setting.

Interactive Workshop (90 minutes)

Reading, Writing, Literacy

Making the leap from awesome classroom teacher to school or program administrator presents numerous unforeseen challenges. Learn the keys to navigating this stressful transition and mastering your new roles and responsibilities. Or come and learn how to support your staff when you promote them to leadership positions.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Program Administration

MATSOL Advocacy Update

MATSOL SESSION (45 minutes)

Policy and Advocacy

This presentation will focus on how one district uses Title III funds to support qualified English learner students who are interested in attending college. The district will discuss the program supported, the outcomes that students have demonstrated as a result of participating, and future plans using Title III funds.

INVITED SPEAKER (45 minutes)

Program Administration

Teachers from Lawrence High School's ENLACE Academy present their experiences creating programming for SLIFE (Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education) & ELLs with disabilities.  This session will focus on program design, authenticity through project-based learning, differentiation for all students, building background knowledge, holding academic expectations, and socio-emotional support.

Panel (45 minutes)

Specific Populations (ELLs with disabilities, SLIFE, etc.)

Students approaching bilingualism should be offered the opportunity to engage in the study of classic, carefully chosen American literature. Using literature as the anchor to language and cultural study, teachers will learn how to plan lessons that expect oral production, grammatical review, vocabulary growth, and reading for evidence.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Reading, Writing, Literacy

This presentation examines the ability to learn and retain high level vocabulary words by ELLs from low SES in the context of dialogic teaching. The high-level vocabulary words, considered important for academic subjects, were supported by projected art and photographs images and taught systematically through discussion in oral modality only. 

Paper/Report (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction

In this research presentation, I share results of a qualitative study that examined teachers' instrucional choices and classroom interactions with their ELs. Study results indicated a disconnect between what teachers thought they did in the classroom and how their ELs actually perceived the instruction. 

Paper/Report (45 minutes)

Knowing our Students

Our classrooms are full of talk, but are teachers or students doing most of the talking?  This session will get participants discussing and thinking about the state of talk in their classrooms and schools.  Participants will also discover practical, research-based strategies for building students' capacity to engage in academic conversation.

Interactive Workshop (45 minutes)

Best Practices in Instruction