Friday Concurrent Sessions

Concurrent sessions run from 10:00-10:45AM

Quick Teaching Tips Sessions

Student-Centered Learning Online with We Speak NYC

David Rowley, ESOL Coordinator, We Speak NYC

We Speak NYC is an Emmy-Award winning ESOL drama series that uses a narrative-based approach to learning, with stories on health care, education, workforce development and worker rights, elder care and other topics. In this workshop, the presenters model the use of visual literacy techniques to generate student-centered learning, using images and video clips from the series. The methods featured in the workshop build vocabulary, observation, evidential reasoning and other language and critical thinking skills. Workshop participants will receive a packet of digital materials you can use in your online classes to foster student-centered learning and civic engagement within immigrant communities.

Games in the Remote Classroom: Motivate and Educate

Elizabeth Fonseca & Cara Tuzzolino, SUNY Nassau Community College, LINCC (Language Immersion at NCC)

Games can enliven remote classroom instruction. Utilizing Zoom, two community college instructors transitioned these classroom staples to the remote learning environment. Board games and virtual scavenger hunts have students communicating in small groups as they eagerly compete to win. Games reinforce grammar, review vocabulary and provide robust student-to-student interaction.

Virtual Reality Environments: Live Forays, Pedagogy and High Leverage Practices

Jasmin Cowin, Touro College, Graduate School of Education, TESOL and Bilingual Department, New York

The Augmented Reality Digital Technologies (ARDT) expansion into all industries from marketing to healthcare, gaming to education poses opportunities and widespread adoption due to recent worldwide health challenges. This workshop will explore ARDT environments with live forays into Virtual Reality (VR) and other ARDT environments. Personal Laptop Computers are highly encouraged.

Empowering Multilingual Learners through Linguistically and Culturally Responsive Pedagogy

Heeok Jeong , Laura Eggleston, & Jennifer Samaniuk, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Herman L. Bradt Primary School, Southgate Elementary School

This quick teaching tip will explain and help teachers explore the ways they can enact linguistically and culturally responsive pedagogy in and outside the classroom. Attendees will be provided pedagogical strategies for meaningful learning, and will be equipped with the functional linguistic tools needed for content-specific textual analysis and teaching. 

Building Meaning from Morphology: Teaching Academic Vocabulary from a Linguistic Perspective

Collette Farone-Goodwin, Resource Specialist, Mid-State Regional Bilingual Education Resource Network @ OCM BOCES 

According to Kieffer & Lesaux (2007), An understanding of word structure can be a powerful tool for students faced with the daunting task of acquiring academic vocabulary. In this interactive professional learning experience, participants will learn basic linguistic terminology with regard to phonology and morphology and learn how to help students understand and use word structure in reading comprehension by: 1) discussing the shift in mindset regarding teaching vocabulary, 2) making connections between the four principles of using morphology to teach academic vocabulary with the five principles of NYSED’s Hallmark Four of the Literacy Briefs, and 3) exploring implications for instruction.

Utilizing Teacher's Feedback To Motivate ESL Students' Writing Interaction

Ali Safivand & Raffaella Borasi, University of Rochester

ESL students utilize teacher's feedback differently. Teacher's feedback used to be more assessment like; however, ESL students’ expectations from their teachers are different at present. The workshop is touching on effective strategies educators can implement teacher’s feedback to scaffold ESL learners’ writing performance and interactions in any educational setting.

Full Circle Intercommunication: a framework for storytelling, writing and connecting

Shena Salvato, SUNY Cortland

Communication in the digital age presents unique challenges for multilingual learners, limiting their opportunity to develop effective interpersonal communication skills. Learn how to implement Full Circle Intercommunication, an original framework developed to support multilingual learners in communicating with one another face-to-face, and in the process, becoming better writers.

Engaging Early Childhood Bilingual Classrooms through Multicultural Songs and Visuals

Katherine Rodriguez, Teacher’s College, Columbia University 

Participants will have the opportunity to explore Multicultural songs, visuals, and techniques to engage their youngest learners within the Bilingual/Dual Language classroom. We will dive into in-person, as well as remote learning strategies. In conclusion, we will share resources found online to support families' multiculturalism at home and to ensure participants gain a deeper understanding of knowing every student well.

Decolonizing Language through Translanguaging

Lauren MacLean, Democracy Prep Public Schools

This workshop examines how translanguaging can be used to decolonize language practices and promote the inclusivity of all linguistic repertoires. Participants will receive an overview of translanguaging and examples of conventional practice before examining how to use translanguaging to incorporate traditionally devalued indigenous languages into their teaching practice.

Community Cultural Wealth as Lens for Teachers of English Learners

Shuzhan Li, Ithaca College

This interactive workshop introduces the framework of Community Cultural Wealth (CCW) as a lens for teachers of English learners (ELs) to disrupt deficit orientations and identify cultural strengths within EL communities. Participants will utilize the CCW framework in analyzing multimodal materials and collaboratively imagine ways to incorporate CCW in practice.

Writing & Speaking with Language Complexity

Elizabeth Wong, NYC Department of Education

Participants will gain activities, resources, & strategies for teaching students to produce complex language in writing and speaking. Beyond any assessment, the instructional ideas presented will focus on how to use a variety of sentence types to convey one's thoughts with efficacy, sophistication, and proficiency.

Using Graphic Organizers to Support ELL Writing

Sarah Carey, Teachers College, Columbia University 

Participants will learn quick tips for using graphic organizers to encourage English Language Learners who are writing, especially in elementary and middle school classrooms.

Leveraging ELLs' Multilingualism through Guided Reading

Susan Calix, Yonkers Public Schools

How can educators leverage students’ multilingualism? English Language Learners at all proficiency levels benefit from before, during, and after reading strategies. Participants will be introduced to translanguaging practices to activate students’ background knowledge, make metalinguistic connections, check for understanding, discuss texts, and demonstrate comprehension using an editable guided reading template.

Explicit Teaching of Register in Elementary Grades: Formal and Informal Language

Adriana DiScipio, NYC Department of Education

In the age of social media and remote learning, an understanding of register, the function of language in formal and informal contexts, is a critical part of language proficiency. Now more than ever, young learners need explicit teaching of stylistic variation: how language is used for different purposes and audiences. During this presentation, I will share a unit of study that introduces students to the importance of using appropriate registers in their writing.

Key Strategies to Benefit ALL in the Integrated CoTeaching Model

Christine Passarelli, NYC Dept of Education District 31

Through this presentation, participants will learn about personal experiences as an ENL co teacher and strategies that I have learned to make the most effective teaching happen in a shared classroom. Through research and practice, participants will learn about the power of building trust and relationships. Participants will walk away with strategies that can be utilized for more effective and productive teaching when working in an integrated co teaching model.

Math strategies that support ELLs in Elementary grades

Nancy Lin

Participants will be shown how the CPA (concrete-pictorial-abstract) approach to math learning is an effective way to support ELLs.

Getting to Know SIFE & Newcomer Learners: Profiles and Pedagogical Strategies

Lisa Auslander & Magdalen Beiting, Bridges to Academic Success & Center for Advanced Study in Education (CASE), Graduate Center, CUNY

After a brief exploration of the existing research on SIFE and Newcomer learners, participants will unpack student learning profiles in order to identify both student strengths and areas of academic and social-emotional need. Teachers will receive ideas for differentiating lessons and curricular resources to guide their classroom practice.

Navigating TESOL Education into the Future

Ching-Ching Lin, Touro College

This study explored how virtual exchange can be incorporated into TESOL education, where TESOL candidates in the U.S. collaborated with their global partners in fostering intercultural learning. This study shows that virtual exchange can be used as an authentic context to expand TESOL candidates’ teaching and collaborative repertoire.

Creating artifacts to increase student engagement on Zoom

Weijia Li, University of Rochester

It is challenging to coordinate a whole class discussion on Zoom even when the number of students is 10 or less. Participants will hear about ways to increase student engagement during online synchronous sessions, for example, having students create artifacts to showcase their ideas.

Zoom Interviews as Listening Materials

Brittany Ober, Columbia University ALP

The presenter shares the process of conducting and recording interviews with guest speakers on Zoom and how she blended principles of critical and extensive listening to write listening materials based on these interviews. Benefits and challenges will be discussed. Participants will leave with a bibliography and practical applications.

A Systematic Approach to Vocabulary Instruction to Support Reading Skills

Christopher Collins, Columbia University ALP

A systematic approach to vocabulary instruction to support reading skills includes assessing vocabulary knowledge, selecting proficiency-appropriate texts and vocabulary for instruction, and integrating ongoing review. The presenter will report on his experience implementing this approach in an EAP setting and explain how it can be adapted to other contexts.

Wikis for Increasing Students' Exposure to Vocabulary

Lauren Lesce, County College of Morris (NJ)

Research shows that in order to learn a new word, students must have multiple exposures to the word. By using wikis, teachers and students can collaboratively compile sample sentences of target vocabulary, increasing students' exposure. Participants will learn how to create and manage wikis to enhance vocabulary instruction.

Research Presentation Sessions

Translanguaging in Adult ESOL: Incorporating Student Perspectives on Language

Kelsey Swift, Graduate Center, CUNY

This project seeks to better understand students‘ conceptions of language at a community-based adult ESOL program in NYC. Focusing on student talk, I show how students resist standard language norms, embracing hybridity, creativity, and criticality, and I explore how such perspectives can inform a culturally-sustaining translanguaging pedagogy.

Native Speakerism: The Production of TESOL Teachers' Language Ideologies

Robert Niewiadomski, Hunter College, CUNY

This exploratory qualitative study sought to gain a deeper understanding of the on-going formation of TESOL teachers' language ideologies about categories used to sort speakers of English who represent various linguistic backgrounds against the backdrop of native-speakerism. It was grounded in Bourdieu‘s conception of "linguistic dominance" and Butler‘s notion of "gender as performativity." Recommendations for teacher education and practice were offered

Sustaining Culture, Practice, and Participation: Special Education Knowledge and Processes in Refugee and Immigrant Communities

Chelsea Stinson, SUNY Cortland Syracuse University

Participants will explore the experiences of parents of ELLs with disabilities and their networks of cultural brokers, focusing on the dialogic relationships related to special education processes. The data reveal realities of educational programs in which ELLs with disabilities are enrolled in cities across NYS, including exclusionary proxemic interactions with educators.