-
Fall 2024 Conference
-
-
-
 
|
The PennTESOL East Fall 2024 Conference will be held Saturday, November 16, 2024 at Franklin Learning Center.
The theme will be Social Perspectives on English Language Teaching.
Registration is now open:
| Getting to the Conference
Franklin Learning Center is a Philadelphia School District High School and is located at 616 N 15th St. Philadelphia, PA 19130. Please enter through the main doors on 15th Street. Note that conference activities will take place on the 1st and 2nd floors and that elevator access will be available as needed. Driving: Free parking will be available in the fenced parking lot behind the school. Public Transit: The school is within a short walking distance from both the Spring Garden and Fairmount stops on the Broad Street Line. | ||||||||||||||||||||||
Certificates of attendance will be provided to all attendees after the event. |  PennTESOL East would like to thank our Independence Sponsor, ELT Matters, for their support. Please visit the ELT Matters vendor table at the conference to learn more about the ALIGN English Language Placement Test or visit their website at eltmatters.org. |
| What ESL Students Need to Know about Their Legal Rights In the past twenty years, I have testified in several court cases involving speakers with Limited English Proficiency (LEP), some of whom were ESL students. I also conducted research to examine how ESL students understand legal language. In this talk, I will draw on my research findings and my experience as a forensic linguist to discuss what ESL students need to know about their legal rights and to show how these rights can be integrated into the curriculum. Presenter Bio Aneta Pavlenko (Ph.D. in Linguistics, Cornell University, 1997) is a Visiting Scholar at the University of York (UK). Her research examines the relationship between multilingualism, cognition, and emotions, including in legal contexts. She has lectured widely in North America, Europe and Asia, has authored more than a hundred articles and published eleven books, the latest of which is Multilingualism and history (Cambridge University Press, 2023). She has testified in court as an expert witness and co-chaired, with Diana Eades, the international Communication of Rights Group that produced the Guidelines for communicating rights to non-native speakers of English in Australia, England and Wales, and the USA (2015). She is Past President of the American Association for Applied Linguistics and winner of the 2006 BAAL Book of the Year award, the 2009 TESOL award for Distinguished Research, the 2021 AAAL Research article award and the 2023 AAAL Distinguished Scholarship and Service Award. |
Culture, Community and Classroom: A K-12 Teacher Panel The title of this Panel is Culture, Community and Classroom. The panel discussion will focus on how K12 EL teachers appreciate and affirm the cultures of our students, as well as how we create and sustain community and collaboration within each of our classrooms and teaching contexts. April Marinell ESL Teacher and EL Point at William McKinley Elementary April Marinell is the ESL Teacher and EL Point at William McKinley Elementary. She provides pull-out and push-in support for grades K-8. This is her 26th year teaching at McKinley. For her first seven years, she was a classroom teacher and taught in grades K-3, including in a Spanish-English Bilingual Program and a Dual Language Program. April has a Master's Degree in Education from Widener University and obtained the ESL Program Specialist certificate after taking courses at LaSalle University. Along with two other McKinley teachers, she started an afterschool student Yarn Club.
Sonya N. Salandy EL Point & Academic Language Program Coordinator at Northeast High School Sonya Salandy brings with her two decades of educational experience with the School District of Philadelphia. She began her journey as an elementary school teacher and ultimately transitioned into being the EL Point/Coordinator for the Academic Language Program at Northeast High School. After gaining her ESL Certificate from Penn State University, she found her passion as a high school English/ESL teacher specializing in teaching students from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds. For the past nine years, she has had the pleasure of managing a team of 30 teachers, counselors, and bilingual counselors. She is primarily responsible for rostering, administering the annual ACCESS and Seal of Biliteracy tests, general problem solving, and creating a positive and safe environment for 1300+ immigrant students.
Michelle Ferguson EL Point and NLA Coordinator at Franklin Learning Center Michelle Ferguson is the EL Point at Franklin Learning Center where she coordinates the Newcomer Learning Academy and supports English Learners school-wide. She was previously the Education Program Manager at HIAS Pennsylvania. She has her Master’s Degree in TESOL and Bachelor’s in Linguistics from Temple University. Michelle is also the Editor of the PennTESOL East newsletter, PTE Voices, and is currently in the Urban Teacher Residency program at the University of Pennsylvania.
Tamara Gerber ESL Teacher and EL Point at Joseph W. Catharine Elementary School Tamara Gerber is the EL Point Person at Joseph W. Catharine Elementary School, where she leads the ESOL team and teaches ESOL in grades 2 and 3. She has worked at Catharine School for the past 8 years and previously served as the first ESOL coordinator and sole ESOL teacher at George W. Nebinger School for 18 years. She has her Master’s Degree in Bilingual/Bicultural Studies from La Salle University and is a member of PennTESOL East. |
|
PennTESOL East is a professional, non-profit association dedicated to the improvement and advancement of English language teaching in eastern Pennsylvania.