Teaching for Biliteracy

Facilitators: Melody Wharton and Patricia Nunez, Center for Teaching for Biliteracy,

Date: Wednesday, August 15 and Thursday, August 16, 2018

Location: International Charter School, 334 Pleasant St., Pawtucket, RI 02860

Course Description:

In this two-day professional development institute, the facilitators will introduce the powerful notion of the Bridge to teachers, administrators, and leadership teams from dual language programs.  The Bridge is the instructional moment when teachers bring the two languages together, strategically guiding bilingual learners to transfer academic content they have learned in one language to the other, engage in contrastive analysis, develop academic English and Spanish across the content areas, read and write grade-level texts across the curriculum, and develop metalinguistic awareness. 

Introduction to Biliteracy and the Bridge

• Sample Biliteracy Unit of Instruction

• Strategies for Developing Oracy and Literacy in Two Languages

• Scheduling for Biliteracy Development

• Elements of the Bridge

• The Bridge in Different Language Programs

• Contrastive Analysis of Languages through the Bridge

Participants will be able to…

- Define and describe the elements of biliteracy instruction

- Plan for the implementation biliteracy units of instruction, including the Bridge, in different language development programs

- Create schedules that reflect teaching for biliteracy

- Define and describe the Bridge and strategies that support the Bridge

- Create Bridge anchor charts and metalinguistic anchor charts

Strongly recommend purchasing text -  Beeman, Karen and Urow, Cheryl, (2012). Teaching for Biliteracy, Strengthening Bridges between Languages, Caslon Publishing ($39.95)