The sessions in this strand are intended for mainstream teachers and administrators who work with English Language Learners (ELLs), but they are open to all conference attendees.  These presentations will showcase techniques to increase effective teaching and assessment of ELLs in mainstream classrooms to help them achieve academic success. Similarly, all conference attendees are welcome to attend sessions that are not in this dedicated room, many of which are similarly targeted to a K-12 audience.

K-12 Day Essential Question:  How do we become learners and leaders with the ability to change something significant during times of change?
The INTESOL K-12 day 2011 will explore the role of student, teacher, and administrator in leadership, teaching, and learning in times of change. 

Co teaching as ESL teachers – Trish Morita Mullaney and Karen Brakke

Co teaching is a model that is being used across the country to support English Language Learners In their general education classrooms.  This has largely transformed the role of the ESL teacher that pulled students from classrooms to one that is more inclusive.  This session will be a sharing from teachers and leaders in MSD Lawrence Township about their journey with co teaching

Bridging the Gap:  Academic Support for Advanced English Language Learners
Sharon McCarthy and panel of teachers and students

The Bridge Program is a four-year high school program offering academic support for advanced English language learners to succeed in high school and be college ready.   In this session, a panel of teachers and students in the Bridge Program will present the history and key components of the program.

Writing to Learn: Sneaking a Little Writing into Everything We Teach
Laura Mull and Katie Brooks

This hands-on workshop will engage K-12, adult education, and IEP participants in activities that they can use to encourage their students to write for academic purposes. With these writing activities, ELL students can use writing as a tool for processing and communicating academic concepts in a low-stakes environment. 

In this workshop, teachers will learn and practice strategies for encouraging ELs to write using academic language during daily classroom activities.  These writing activities will focus on using academic language to process and communicate key academic concepts during informal writing activities for which students should receive no formal grade or explicit teacher feedback.  The purpose of these activities is to encourage ELs to write in low stress situations so that they gain confidence and facility for using writing as a tool for processing academic concepts.  Strategies modeled will include chalk talk, double entry journals and discussion, and read-talk-write.  All three strategies integrate reading, writing, speaking, and listening skills as well as an inquiry approach to learning.  While this workshop is targeted toward K-12 ESL and content area teachers, adult education and IEP teachers will also find these strategies age and developmentally appropriate for their students.

Around the State English Learner Discussion
This session is for K-12 administrators, district-level administrators, university administrators and professors to work together.  The time will place an essential focus on communication and collaboration in order to benefit the work we are all doing for English learners.

Project Alianza Retrospective: Reflections on Thinking, Talking, and Learning Together

Session Description: Project Alianza, the US Department of Education Title III professional development grant hosted by the College of Education at Butler University, is now beginning its fifth and final year of this grant cycle. As the final cohorts begin to meet, the principal investigator and the project manager found themselves pausing to reflect upon all that they have learned and asking themselves how Project Alianza itself has changed and evolved over time in response to the more than 250 Marion County educators who have completed the program. Because Project Alianza itself emphasizes the power of stories, what could be more appropriate than to invite a panel of “experts,” those who “lived to tell the story” and who have continued to extend their Project Alianza experiences in a variety of ways? Panel members will bring their stories and reflections upon their experiences to share and will interact with one another, as well as take questions from the audience. In this session, session attendees will all come away with fresh, new ideas about collaboration across classrooms, across disciplines, and across institutions to strengthen pedagogy and to create more inclusive schools for English language learners