The Thursday afternoon sessions are designed for teachers and administrators of all K-12 dual language/immersion (DL/I) programs, as well as post-secondary instructors, professors, and researchers.

Our professional learning focus for the November 12th broadcast will be on building a strong K-12 DL/I sequence and its benefits to individual students, local communities, and our state. We will draw on the K-12 DL/I Bridging document and feature guest speakers from two North Carolina districts with multiple DL/I programs, Chatham County Schools and Union County Public Schools, to share their DL/I program success stories and their strategies for recruiting and retaining DL/I teachers, coordinators, administrators, and others, in order to establish and expand a K-12 DL/I sequence across their districts.

Submit this registration form or click on the webinar graphic above to access it and join us for the broadcast on Thursday, November 12, at 3:30 - 5:30 pm. Additional details about this webinar, and the entire DL/I Webinar Series, are posted on the NC DL/I Webinar Series page on the DL/I Google Site.

DL/I Discourse Magazine

Webinar Recap Article from September 3, 2020

Throughout the semester, we will showcase DL/I curriculum highlights from across the state in listserv announcements, including articles written by webinar guest speakers on the professional learning focus that they discussed. These articles will be compiled and republished in the Fall 2020 DL/I Discourse magazine in January. The Spring 2021 edition will focus on global education and be published in magazine format in July. 

The 2019 - 2020 DL/I Discourse Year in Review is still available, and the current articles that will be compiled in the next edition are on the DL/I Discourse magazine page under the Resources tab.

Collaboration is Key

by Johanna Park, Director of Innovation

In 2018 Dare County Schools (DCS), on the Outer Banks of North Carolina, launched Spanish dual language/immersion (DL/I) programs in four out of the five elementary schools in the county. This launch came after district leadership completed a series of community meetings and surveys. At the close of these sessions one thing was clear - Dare County families wanted a language immersion option for their children. After a successful first year, DCS added one more program making Dare the only county in North Carolina where Spanish DL/I is an option at every elementary school. 

From the start of our DL/I programs, collaboration between schools and teachers has been key. Elementary school leaders, teachers, and bilingual teacher assistants all work together to ensure our programs maintain high standards and expectations. With starting new programs, we learned quickly that teachers were having a difficult time with planning lessons that met both language standards and the district pacing guide. A team of teachers suggested creating a guide for Spanish Language Arts (SLA) that married together the district guide and Spanish Language Curriculum - so we did just that! These working documents are used by our DL/I teachers across the district. Planning using the themes from science and social studies standards has helped staff ensure all the curriculum is covered. It’s also been beneficial for the flow from English to Spanish in our programs that organize their instructional time 50/50, or 50% in Spanish and 50% in English. Here’s an example of our 2nd grade SLA Guide. 

Some advice I received early on when working in DL/I is to give teachers the gift of time. They are creating and translating new resources regularly outside of working hours, so if I can adjust their schedules or get them a substitute every now and then while they do curricular work - we do it! We work to give our DL/I teachers time to collaborate across schools and professional learning communities (PLCs) together. This has been especially helpful during Remote Learning. Grade level teachers from across the county meet online to discuss pacing, virtual engagement strategies, and the highs/lows of the week. These PLCs and our SLA guides were not a mandated expectation from leadership, but instead started as the ideas of our teachers! Supporting talent is important to us in DCS. Learn more about Dare County Schools’ DL/I programs by visiting our website.

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

by Donna Podgorny, DL/I Instructional Coach

Union County Public Schools (UCPS) has been developing dual language/immersion (DL/I) programs since 2012. There are currently 20 programs located in 14 elementary schools and six middle schools. UCPS offers Chinese (Mandarin) and Spanish DL/I programs in a variety of grade level and instructional time configurations. The district DL/I history and models were shared during the September 3^rd NCDPI DL/I webinar.  To learn more about the district’s programs, please visit http://bit.ly/UCPSDLI. 

In response to the pandemic, Union County Public Schools also launched a DL/I Virtual Academy on October 26 for those 160 K-5 students who do not attend school in person. The DL/I expansion into fully virtual instruction was spotlighted on television by WCNC in Charlotte and shared in the October 22^nd ACTFL Smartbrief. The DL/I Virtual Academy details can be found on their webpage at http://bit.ly/UCPSDLIvirtual 

Quality instructional resources are always key to success in DL/I teaching. Remote teaching and learning during a pandemic have caused shifts in needed resources. Digital print, interactive materials, video and audio resources are key to teaching DL/I students online. Interactive activities that can be delivered and completed online are needed to support remote learning and practice. Teachers have been highly creative and flexible in adapting to this new instructional mode. Prior to October 26, district DL/I K - 5 teachers learned to livestream classes, to create instructional videos for online learning, to create online games, and to use the Canvas learning management system to deliver content and to collect assignments. 

Necessity is the mother of invention. UCPS dual language coaches compiled an inventory of free and commercial resources for teaching Mandarin and Spanish. See http://bit.ly/DLIRemoteResources2021 for that list, which is organized by grade span (K-2, 3-5, 6-8) and by language. In addition, there are a multitude of organizations, national contributors and interactive tech tools that can be explored for supporting professional development needs, for student engagement and for comprehensible resources. Explore some exemplary resources at http://bit.ly/DLIResourceSources. Tell a colleague. Sharing is caring!