This eWorkshop, Learning Through Two Languages, is suitable for all K-12 teachers. It'll begin on January 8th (Monday) and it'll last 13 weeks. The first week will be considered as the on boarding week, so participants can get ready for the eWorkshop, and the first unit of the eWorkshop will start the following week. The eWorkshop has 6 units, with each unit requiring ~3 hours of a participants' time. Participants will work in groups of 5-6 people collaboratively and will have 2 weeks to complete each unit. Therefore, the entire eWorkshop will be ~18 hours of Professional Development (documented with a certificate for those who complete it) and will finish in early April. For those who wish to have their eWorkshop participation count towards graduate level credit will also have the opportunity to take a 1 credit class building off the work of the eWorkshop at UNL.
The author of this eWorkshop is Nancy Commins, and her work is focused on building on students’ linguistic and cultural assets to foster additive bilingualism. Hence the main goal of this eWorkshop is to develop a deeper understanding of the following concepts and ideas and apply them into your own practice. The topics included: bilingualism as an asset in becoming academically proficient, the relationship of two languages and the idea that there is a common underlying proficiency of language and concepts in the brain, building on what students bring with them and knowing in one language to learn through the other and going beyond language to the ideas of culture and cross-cultural competence.
The eWorkshop was designed around the following essential question:
Essential Question: How can we build on students’ linguistic and cultural assets to foster additive bilingualism?
Each unit was designed around a guiding question that in sum will help you to answer the essential question. Here are each of the guiding questions for the units in this eWorkshop.
Unit 1: How does speaking a language other than English benefit students in U.S. schools?
Unit 2: How do bilingual learners access information and express what they know when they are learning through two languages?
Unit 3: How is teaching on the “Second Language Pathway” different from teaching on the first?
Unit 4: How do bilingual learners transfer the knowledge they have gained through one language to express themselves in another language?
Unit 5: How can I help bilingual students increase their communicative competence in a second language?
Unit 6: Answer the Essential Question
You can download Here the eWorkshop flyer:
https://cehs.unl.edu/tlte/ICMEE/Flyers/Learning%20Through%20Two%20Languages.pdf
If you would like to be a participant in this eWorkshop, please contact Araceli Lobato (araceli.ld@huskers.unl.edu). The first 20 people who register for this eWorkshop will qualify for a stipend of $200 if they complete the eWorkshop on the agreed upon timeline as well as the surveys and agreements at the beginning and end.
More details at: https://cehs.unl.edu/icmee/frequently-asked-questions/