June 2021

June Newsletter

The new MinneTESOL journal has launched

We are pleased to bring you Volume 37, Issue 1 of MinneTESOL Journal, an excellent collection of pieces focusing on a variety of aspects and contexts of English language teaching and learning. The two articles featured this month utilize the WIDA framework to support teaching.

In “Putting Discourse First,” Cynthia Lundgren explains that putting discourse first is a form of scaffolding that can yield more thoughtful discussions about the language choices speakers and writers make and how language awareness can help students advance their communicative purpose most effectively.

In “Making language visible in content area classrooms using the WIDA English Language Development Standards Framework,”, Ruslana Westerlund and Sharon Besser show how the resources in the WIDA Standards Framework can be used by content area teachers to attend to the discipline-specific ways language works in their content area.

MinneTESOL journal call for papers

Now is your chance to publish an article in the upcoming MinneTESOL Journal, a

practitioner academic online journal. See Writing for the MinneTESOL Journal for more information.

Journal submissions are accepted on a rolling basis.

Email the senior editors to learn more about submitting work: journal@minnetesol.org

See the current MinneTESOL issue here!

Get to know the Executive Board

Each newsletter will profile a different Executive Board or MinneTESOL member.

Name: LeeAnne Godfrey

Position at MinneTESOL: Treasurer

Teaching Context: I currently work at the Minnesota English Language Program at the University of Minnesota. I am the faculty liaison, and in this role I work to support faculty/staff across campus to better serve international and multilingual students. I also teach in the academic English program.

Why you got into ESL: I started teaching ESL as a language assistante in a French high school through a program with the French government. From there I taught in Poland, and then I was hooked. I love teaching and learning languages, working in and across different cultures, and connecting with students. It’s a rewarding career that fills me in so many ways.

Current Project: I am interested in ways faculty across campus and disciplines can be more inclusive of linguistically diverse students and how this intersects with diversity, equity, and inclusion and internationalization efforts.

MELEd 2021 proposals out for rating

The annual MELEd conference will take place November 18-20, 2021, at the Saint Paul Rivercentre. The call for proposals closed June 28, and raters are now reading the proposals. Those who submitted proposals will be informed about proposals acceptance by the end of August.

For more information about our conference check the Fall Conference page of the MinneTESOL website.

Visit MinneTESOL at the Minnesota State Fair
MinneTESOL will be at the Great Minnesota Get-Together! On Sunday, August 29, volunteers from MinneTESOL will be in the Education Minnesota booth in the Education Building at the Minnesota State Fair. We will ask questions from the US Citizenship test and hand out candy. If you are there that day, please stop by and say hello!

Literacy Action Network ABE Summer Institute is coming in August

The popular ABE Summer Institute will be held online this year on August 18-19, 2021.