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UPCOMING EVENTS: 
 

SPRING CONFERENCE 2025: "Culture as the Catalyst to Language Learning."

 

-Presenter: T.J. Burdick

-Thursday, April 24, 2025 starting at 5:30 p.m. 

-Dinner included!

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Tj Burdick has taught as an immersion educator both in the US and internationally for nearly 20 years. He has been at Forest Hills working in both Spanish and Chinese immersion programs since 2009. The topic of his talk, “Culture as the Catalyst for Language Learning,” will showcase an anthropological approach to how languages were born from the cultures that created them, and how teachers can capitalize on their students’ natural ability to learn languages quickly through cultural cues. 

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WINTER NETWORKING 2025: Culture Integration in the Immersion Classroom

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-Thursday, February, 20 2025 at 5:30-6:30

-Zeeland- New Groningen Elementary

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Immersion members and other educators will share ideas of how they integrate and teach culture through the arts, cultural celebrations, holidays and other forms of culture in their classrooms and immersion programs 

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CHECK OUT OUR PAST EVENTS:
 
FALL CONFERENCE 2024: Dr. Cory Mathieu 
Presenter: Dr. Cory Mathieu

Cory is currently an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin Green Bay, and did her doctoral work with the University of Minnesota on Curriculum and Instruction.  

Here is the basic information you need to reserve a place for a Hosted Learning Lab by Cory at your school: 

  1. Dates: Thursday or Friday September 26/27

  2. Learning Labs are 2 hours either morning or afternoon

  3. Cost: $375 - additional to WMAIE membership

  4. Please speak to your administrator and encourage registration.  

  5. WMAIE will send out a $50 invoice as a deposit for date/time to hold your school's spot in the fall

This is an opportunity for Dr. Cory Mathieu to model real life examples with YOUR students.  Hosted learning labs are truly impactful for your building. In these learning labs, Cory Mathieu will demonstrate a mini-literacy lesson with a focus on integrating content, language, and literacy instruction. Teachers will observe strategies for explicitly teaching language functions and forms within a discipline-specific literacy genre. Take advantage of this great opportunity of impactful professional development in your building.  We will work to honor time/date requests. Flexibility is needed to allow transition/drive time between schools and/or districts. Please contact the WMAIE board at wmaiegroup@gmail.com with any questions.


SPRING CONFERENCE 2024: The Bridge and Bridging in the Dual Language/Immersion Classroom
Presenter: Karen Beeman
Karen Beeman is an education consultant whose specialty is biliteracy and bilingual education. Karen has worked as a classroom teacher, principal of a dual language school in Chicago, education specialist with the Illinois Resource Center and professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and National Louis University. The area that has most captured Karen’s passion and work is biliteracy, how to teach children how to read and write in two languages at the same time. As a professional developer, Karen works at the national level providing training for teachers, principals, and other stakeholders involved in one-way and two-way immersion/dual language programs, transitional bilingual programs, and English as a second language programs on topics that include biliteracy development, authentic methods for teaching Spanish literacy, the Bridge between languages and literacy in English. A simultaneous bilingual born and raised in Mexico City, Karen is co-author, along with Cheryl Urow, of the book Teaching for Biliteracy: Strengthening Bridges between Languages (2013), Caslon Publishing and co-founder and co-manager of the Center for Teaching for Biliteracy, www.teachingforbiliteracy.com.




WINTER NETWORKING EVENT 2024: Translanguaging 
This event focused on small group discussions surrounding the pedagogy of translanguaging.  We focused on the what, why and how to implement this strategy to support bilingual development. 

FALL CONFERENCE 2022 Resources from Lucia Rocha!
Below are some resources shared with us from Lucia Rocha to support literacy in our classrooms! 
To access the videos from the learning labs with Lucia Rocha, click HERE








 

DID YOU KNOW???

Did you know that you can support WMAIE when you shop on Amazon?  If you sign up for Amazon Smile and select West Michigan Alliance for Immersion Educators as the non-profit organization to support, 0.5% of your purchases will be donated to WMAIE.  Even better, convince your friends and family to sign-up too.  You'll get the same Amazon prices as before, you'll just be helping immersion education at the same time. 

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The West Michigan Alliance of Immersion Education (WMAIE) thanks you for your support. We are a nonprofit organization pursuant to Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Contributions are tax deductible as permitted by law.

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