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This year in Portland BEIS celebrated 40 years of
Bilingual Education in TESOL. To commemorate this event, Sandra Mercuri,
Chair, and Dawn Wink, Chair-Elect, worked on two important
tasks:
a) Reach out to other organizations to establish a relationship
for recruitment of new members for BEIS. As a result, four members of
the Board and staff of Dual Language of New Mexico (DLeNM) became
members of our Bilingual Education Interest Section. In addition, the
leadership team established an electronic communication system with
DLeNM’s executive director David Rogers and attended DLeNM’s November
conference in Albuquerque. Our goal was to promote TESOL at sessions and
at the booth provided by Mr. Rogers and enhance our recruitment efforts
through their national and international community, which includes
members from Canada, Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, Qatar, Japan, and
others. While based in New Mexico, DLeNM engages, contributes, and is
relevant in the national and international scope.
b) During the past year the leadership team worked hard to
organize an academic session to honor those in TESOL who have
contributed to the field of bilingual education. Among our academic
session honorees and presenters were Jim Cummins, Maria Brisk, Yvonne
and David Freeman, Virginia Collier, Wayne Thomas, and Joan Wink. In
addition, BEIS had two important intersections and fifteen presentations
by its members.
1. BEIS Academic Session - "A
Celebration of 40 Years of Multilingualism Within TESOL" presented by Maria Brisk, Yvonne and David Freeman, Virginia
Collier, Wayne Thomas, and Joan Wink
2. Teacher education and BEIS Inter Section Session
-"Cultural Context in Teacher Education" presented by Sandra Mercuri, Jenelle Reeves, and Dawn
Wink.
3. Elementary Education and BEIS Intersection - "Explore Common Core, Sustain Successful Strategies,
Renew Academic Literacy" presented by Judie Haynes, Sandra
Mercuri, and Aida Nevarez-LaTorre.
Moreover, Sandra Musanti, currently Chair Elect-Elect of the
IS, presented “Mathematics Discourse Communities: Advancing
Latina/o mathematics learning and academic literacy”in the
general session.
Sandra Mercuri, PhD
BEIS Past Chair
Associate Professor and Chair,
Language, Literacy and Intercultural Studies Department
College of Education
University of Texas at Brownsville |
