Services

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In my role as a keynote speaker, I deliver compelling presentations that challenge conventional thinking, invoke critical insights, share practical applications, and inspire educators, all while underscoring the collective wisdom and expertise in the room. My experience in delivering keynote addresses spans a wide range of professional contexts, including:

• Teacher professional organizations: Presenting at conferences and symposia for educators at various levels, from K-12 to higher education.
• Faculty development workshops: Facilitating sessions aimed at enhancing pedagogical/androgogical practices.
• Educational leadership forums: Addressing administrators and policymakers on topics related to educational reform and best practices.
• International education conferences: Engaging with global audiences to discuss cross-cultural perspectives and international trends in education.

Through these engagements, I have honed my ability to tailor content and delivery to diverse audiences, ensuring that each presentation resonates with the specific needs and interests of the attendees. By combining rigorous academic insights with engaging storytelling and multimedia elements, I strive to create memorable and impactful keynote experiences that contribute meaningfully to professional discourse and development in the field of education.

As an expert in English language development and teacher education, I specialize in empowering educators to optimize learning opportunities for multilingual students across all linguistic domains. My comprehensive approach encompasses:

Linguistic Foundations

I guide educators in developing a deep understanding of the core elements of language:

• Phonology: Enhancing awareness of the sound systems of English and students' home languages to support pronunciation and listening comprehension
• Morphology: Exploring word formation processes to build vocabulary and grammatical knowledge
• Semantics: Unpacking meaning at the word, sentence, and discourse levels to foster reading comprehension and academic language proficiency
• Syntax: Analyzing sentence structures to improve students' writing and speaking skills
• Pragmatics: Developing sociolinguistic competence for effective communication across various contexts

Instructional Strategies

I equip teachers with research-based pedagogical approaches to:

• Design language-rich learning environments that promote active engagement
• Scaffold instruction to make content accessible while maintaining high cognitive demand
• Integrate language and content objectives across the curriculum

I provide comprehensive support to elementary classroom and secondary content area educators who have multilingual learners in their classrooms. My professional development offerings are tailored to meet the specific needs of educators and school districts but often focus on these two key areas:

Sustaining Home Language Skills

I equip educators with evidence-based strategies to sustain multilingual learners' productive (speaking and writing) and receptive (listening and reading) skills in their home languages. These strategies are designed to leverage students' existing linguistic resources, recognizing that a strong foundation in the first language supports second language acquisition and overall academic achievement.

Optimizing English Language Acquisition

I work closely with general education teachers to develop the essential dispositions, knowledge, and skills required to create lessons with targeted content-based and leveled language objectives. After providing a foundation of second language acquisition processes, cross-linguistic transfer, and the role of language in content learning, I offer practical tools for scaffolding instruction, differentiating content, and designing linguistically appropriate assessments. 

I support school leadership teams to design systems that effectively and respectfully serve multilingual learners throughout the school day. Below are examples of skills I promote across leadership roles: 

District and Building Administrators

• Cultivate teacher leaders
• Facilitate leadership teams
• Consider the implications of adult learning theory (androgogy) in professional spaces

District and Building ELD Leaders

• Lead professional learning communities focused on multilingual learners of English
• Analyze language proficiency data to inform improvement efforts
• Collaborate with other leaders to develop and implement language policies and programs

I collaborate with district leadership to conduct site-based analyses in order to  determine the most critical needs of multilingual learners and their families. Using this data, I work alongside various community stakeholders to engage in democratic decision-making to establish a shared vision and set measurable goals. With these goals in mind, I facilitate strategic planning meetings aimed at collectively designing systems that provide an equitable and uninterrupted language-learning experience for all multilingual learners of English across the K-12 grade span. Finally, I offer tools and ongoing support to conduct annual program reviews to ensure continuous program improvement. 

Are you interested in learning more about TESOL SWEL? 

Language teachers are often asked to lead workshops and support their colleagues’ instruction, but they rarely have access to the training needed to accomplish this work efficiently, effectively, and with confidence. 

The Teacher Leadership for School-Wide English Learning (SWEL) workshop series prepares language teachers to share their expertise with colleagues through collaborative discussions and observations.  It is a systematic framework that recognizes teacher professional learning is most effective when it is in-house.

While my consulting can be paired with SWEL training, SWEL is facilitated through TESOL International Association. Click the link below to learn more.