Global Competency/World Languages

Catherine Del Valle, a Spanish teacher at Russell High School, is the 2018 recipient of the Kentucky World Language Association Outstanding Teacher Award. She received the award Sept. 22 at the KWLA annual conference in Lexington.

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages annual conference is set for Nov. 16-18 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans.

The Global Education Conference Network will be offering several free events for educators this year.

Registration is open for the Global Citizenship Certificate Program, a comprehensive global educational program to guide high school students in expanding their global perspectives with international experiences.

The Regional English Language Office at the U.S. Embassy in Brazil is offering a funding opportunity to support the development of English teaching capacity for Brazilian public school teachers in bilingual schools through an in-person and online exchange program.

With the new school year right around the corner, now is the time for educators to begin planning which professional learning events will provide them with opportunities to grow as professionals.

We need to be planning for and planning on Reflecting, Energizing, Assessing and Leading. It starts with taking an honest look at our classroom environment, interactions with students, biases, priorities, curriculum preferences and most honestly, our own experiences learning the same content.

As teachers, we can talk about pedagogy until we’re blue in the face. At the end of the day, however, we want strategies and resources that fit our classrooms and personalities, so we need choices.

Meredith White of the Southern Conference On Language Teaching said backward designing each day's lessons, starting with what she wanted her students to know and be able to do each day, helped her ensure every minute of classroom time was used effectively.

Franklin County's Rachel Medina helped her Spanish students with their presentational writing skills by getting them to write original children's stories or adapt an existing one with a new twist.