Optimizing Instruction for Multilingual Learners: Focus on Special Educational Needs
Wednesday, November 10, 2021
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Event Description
In this virtual, full-day, pre-conference session, participants will examine key components of effective instruction for multilingual learners with special educational needs including: peer interaction, oral communication, comprehension and bilingualism. Participants will also interactively practice instruction and intervention approaches for both young and adolescent students and survey classroom-based research that optimizes learning. There will be opportunities to explore multilingual resources and supporting research pertaining to the benefits of bilingualism for learners with special educational needs
Features the recent publication:
Sánchez-López, C. and Young, T. (2018). Focus On Special Education Needs. Oxford Key Concepts for the Language Classroom Series. Oxford University Press
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Presenters
Associate, Paridad Education Consulting
Cristina is an education specialist in the areas of multilingual, multicultural education. She collaborates with educators in the US and Canada on ELL and Special Education; developing culturally and linguistically responsive multi-tiered system of supports (MTSS) for ELLs; middle school mathematics; literacy across the content areas; parent engagement and supporting Pre-K educators who serve young Dual Language Learners (DLLs). Cristina has taught at the elementary, middle school and university levels in the US and Mexico. She presently teaches graduate courses in Reading, Assessment and Foundations for ELLs. She is co-author on the book: Special Education Considerations for English Language Learners: Delivering a continuum of services (Caslon Publishing, 2013) as well as various articles and chapters on supporting ELLs. Cristina and her husband have raised their daughter bilingually.
Cristina & Theresa's Work Together
Speech-Language Pathologist
Theresa began her career on the Pacific island of Saipan, in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands where she worked with multilingual students and families in home, school, and medical settings. She coordinated a team of speech-language pathologists to develop culturally and linguistically responsive assessment and intervention practices for Pacific Islanders. Upon returning to Canada, Theresa worked in schools in the highly diverse Toronto area, while providing professional development and writing collaboratively on multicultural, multilingual topics in education. She had the opportunity to bring diversity theory into practice during four years in a co-instructional role in a multicultural Kindergarten Early Language Intervention classroom in the Toronto District School Board. Theresa has taught English as a Second Language to both children and adults in Saipan, Canada and Israel. She currently resides in her home town of Parry Sound where she provides clinical services to pediatric and adult populations. She has been working with local First Nations to design and implement programs and services for children in preschools and schools in home communities.
Cristina's and Theresa's collaborative work melds the fields of English language learning and speech-language pathology into a framework for qualitative assessment and evidence based instruction and intervention for English Language Learners. They present together at conferences and multiple day workshops in United States and Canada. Their approach is featured in chapters 2-4 of Special Education Considerations for English Language Learners: Delivering a Continuum of Services (2013), and in a forthcoming book in the Oxford University Press Focus Series, Focus on Special Educational Needs (2018).