Join us at the National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) Conference on March 28–30, 2024 at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside in New Orleans, Louisiana. This year’s theme is “Celebrating heritage language and its role in promoting multilingualism, multiliteracy, and multiculturalism."
Our experts from Quality Teaching for English Learners and the National Research & Development Center to Improve Education for Secondary English Learners will have sessions in English and Spanish.
THURSDAY, MARCH 28
Session: How the Conceptualization of Language Influences Instructional Opportunities for English Learners
Presenter: Annette Gregg
Time: 8:40 AM – 9:30 AM
Location: Grand Ballroom
Description: All learners deserve rich, authentic learning opportunities that offer both challenge and well-scaffolded support for them to develop deep, disciplinary knowledge and be able to transfer their learning to novel situations. For English and Multilingual Learners, they must also simultaneously develop more complex uses and understanding of English. In this session, we will explore how educators’ conceptualizations of what language is influences their planning and facilitation of instruction, and how we can support building shared understanding of language in ways that can powerfully reshape the education of English and Multilingual Learners.
Session: From Policy to Practice: Supporting the Implementation of English Language Development Policies Through Professional Learning
Presenters: Jennifer Blitz and Melissa Castillo, Senior Advisor, U.S. Department of Education
Time: 8:40 AM – 9:30 AM
Location: Jackson
Description: As states make ongoing shifts to English language proficiency standards, English proficiency assessments, and instructional approaches and program models, schools and districts must make fundamental changes to their support for English Learners. This presentation will explain a professional learning response aimed at building deep knowledge about the quality pedagogical, coaching, and leadership practices necessary for learning acceleration; the skills to successfully implement them; and the capacity to sustain and scale them over time in order to support educators at all levels of the system to come together to improve outcomes for English Learners.
Session: The Baby and the Bathwater: Pedagogical Considerations for Amplifying Existing Curriculum for English Learner
Presenter: Mary Schmida
Time: 1:10 – 2:20 PM
Location: Quarterdeck A
Description: This presentation addresses pedagogical considerations for the amplification of existing curricular materials in order to make them engaging and accessible for English Learners, without simplifying content and rigor. Grounded in Sociocultural Theory, key design features, scaffolding, and collaborative opportunities to learn will be illustrated in order to model how educators can take existing lessons and units and modify them to meet the needs of English Learners.
Session: Supporting Teachers’ Expertise in Providing Multilingual Learners with Motivating Learning
Presenter: Annette Gregg
Time: 2:30 – 3:20 PM
Location: Prince of Wales
Description: This session will highlight WestEd’s collaboration with schools, districts, and states to support the development of teacher expertise in providing students with rigorous and engaging learning opportunities. Based on sociocultural and sociolinguistic theories of learning and the central role of language in the learning process, our work is focused on developing educator capacity in supporting ALL students, especially multilingual learners to develop their full potential through carefully constructed, implemented, and monitored interactions that scaffold the learning and acquisition of content and language knowledge simultaneously. This development of teacher and student capacity is a consequence of carefully planned opportunities to participate in meaningful and demanding activity with others that offer high challenge coupled with high support.
Session: Beyond the Read Aloud: How Quality Interactions Support Oracy Development for Young English Learners
Presenter: Annette Gregg
Time: 5:10 PM – 6:30 PM
Location: Magazine
Description: Young English and Multilingual Learners (PK-2) must have opportunities to regularly interact with complex texts in order to deepen their conceptual understanding and foster language development. Students must have ample practice expressing their ideas and experiences through generative discussions which are essential for deep learning that promotes social well-being, disciplinary knowledge, and language development simultaneously. This session will explore how teachers can go beyond a traditional read aloud and create rich learning experiences for all young English Learners.
Session: The Design of Jigsaw Projects in the Elementary Spanish Classroom: Equity, Voice, and Quality Interactions / Diseño de Proyectos de Rompecabezas en Español para Primaria: Equidad, Voz e Interacciones de Calidad
Presenters: Kathia Romo & Pía Castilleja
Time: 5:10 PM – 6:30 PM
Location: Starboard
Description: Drawing on sociocultural learning theory, this session actively engages participants in a jigsaw-based elementary science lesson on biomes and habitats. Participants experience and analyze the affordances and generativity of jigsaw projects in the elementary Spanish dual-language classroom. Equity and its relationship to student voice and quality interactions are discussed (Walqui & van Lier, 2010), in service of deepening participants’ understanding of the activity as well as to equip them to implement it in their classrooms (Sturtridge & McAlpin, 1977; Aronson, 1978). This workshop facilitated completely in Spanish, is beneficial for elementary educators, coaches, and leaders.
FRIDAY, MARCH 29
Session: Developing Language and Literacy in Mathematics for Long-Term English Learners
Presenter: Leslie Hamburger
Time: 8:40 AM – 9:30 AM
Location: Norwich
Description: Long-term English Learners lack adequate access to rigorous instruction and robust opportunities to develop language and literacy in secondary mathematics settings impacting their high school trajectory and opportunities in college and career. The IES funded RAMP-UP Math project engages students in a summer bridge program to develop conceptual understandings about cross cutting mathematical ideas, participation in overarching disciplinary practices like description, explanation, and argument, and disciplinary literacy and oracy. Educators learn how to design language and literacy rich rigorous instruction in mathematics to advance the development of Long-term English Learners
Session: What We Know About Math Instruction for Multilingual Learners: Findings from WestEd’s National Research & Development Center to Improve Education for Secondary English Learners
Presenter: Leslie Hamburger
Time: 2:40 PM – 3:30 PM
Location: Eglington Winton
Description: This session will highlight WestEd’s National Research & Development Center to Improve Education for Secondary English Learners recent findings on improving learning outcomes in mathematics. The study, Reimagining and Accelerating Mathematics Participation, Understanding, and Practices (RAMP-UP) provides the field with what we are learning about teacher needs and capacity, their use of educative curriculum, optimum design of mathematics learning experiences for multilingual learners. The study will outline more about the design of learning experiences that support and challenge ELs in math and how to develop curriculum and teacher expertise to accomplish this objective.
Session: Developing the Expertise of ELA Teachers Who Work with Students Classified as Long-Term English Learners
Presenters: Lee Hartman and Aída Walqui
Time: 8:40 – 9:30
Location: Churchill A2
Description: Designed for teacher educators, coaches, or professional developers, this workshop addresses key elements that need to be present when educators are offered quality and equitable opportunities to learn. Focused on the fastest growing subset of Multilingual Learners, those who have been in the designation for more than 6 years, common misconceptions about their education will be explored and challenged through interactive activities while showcasing an ambitious pedagogy. Participants will engage in generative collaborative activities that model what teachers can do in the classroom, and how educators leading professional learning can present, engage, and support colleagues.
SATURDAY, MARCH 30
Session: Complexity and Coherence in Transforming District Practices to offer Multilingual Learners Educational Quality and Equity
Presenters: Aída Walqui and Alexandra Estrella, Norwalk Public Schools Superintendent
Time: 12:40 – 2:00 PM
Location: Royal
Description: How does a district change organically and coherently to prepare all of its educators to offer English Learners —and all other students— powerful opportunities to become critical, outspoken, participatory citizens? In this presentation Norwalk, CT Superintendent Alexandra Estrella and a team of her leaders, in collaboration with Aída Walqui, from WestEd’s QTEL highlight the most important aspects of the joint work they have carried out and its impressive results.
Session: Interaction and Action in the Professional Development of Spanish Teachers in Oregon: An Ecological/Sociocultural Perspective
Presenters: Aída Walqui, Leah Hinkle, Clackamas Education Service District, OR; Jesabel Centeno, Bilingual Specialist, Tigard-Tualatin School District, OR; Kathia Romo
Time: 8:00 – 9:20 AM,
Location: Jackson
Description: In this panel, a summer institute for Spanish as Heritage Language run by QTEL in Oregon will be unpacked. Multiple roles will be discussed: the organizer (Aída Walqui), the orchestrator (Leah Hinkle, Clackamas County Office), a participant, Jesabel Centeno, a teacher, and Kathia Romo, the apprentice. We will share rationale, processes, and materials during the presentation.
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