MELEd 2022: Calls for Proposals and Proposal Raters

The 9th annual Minnesota English Learner Education (MELEd) conference will take place November 17-19, 2022, at the Saint Paul Rivercentre.

This conference is a partnership between MinneTESOL and the Minnesota Department of Education.  It is a merger of the annual MinneTESOL Fall Conference and the Minnesota ESL, Bilingual, and Migrant Education Conference.

New this year at MELEd: more scholarships to allow more people to experience the conference. Stay tuned for more details!

Call for Proposals

MinneTESOL and the Minnesota Department of Education welcome proposals related to all aspects of English language teaching and best practices for multilingual learners.

While research-based proposals are always welcome, proposals that emphasize practical tools or strategies for teachers are especially encouraged. Submission proposals relevant to early childhood education, elementary/secondary education, Adult Basic Education (ABE), post secondary education, and special populations (e.g. Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education, Long-Term English Learners, etc.) are also particularly encouraged.

For more information about what makes a great proposal, go to our website. To submit a proposal directly, go to the Proposal Submission Form. Submission deadline is June 17. 

Call for Proposal Raters

We are seeking individuals who are interested in rating conference proposals from:

• Early Childhood
• Migrant Education
• Elementary
• Middle School
• SLIFE
• High School
• Adult ESL

Complete this short form to be a proposal rater.

This summer our Proposal Rating committee will be working with other educators and TESOL professionals  to read and score all submitted proposals. They will use a blind process that ensures a fair selection of the proposals best suited to our event and community. Take a look at the proposal rubric on the MELEd Conference page.

The Proposal Review committee will be in touch with instructions later in this month or in early June. Please consider supporting the conference as a proposal rater!

MinneTESOL journal featured article

Also committed to excellence in English language (EL) education, WIDA’s content-driven language learning framework has provided needed structure for EL instruction. Lynn Shafer Willner, Fernanda Marinho Kray, and Margo Gottlieb provide a comprehensive overview of the WIDA standards in “What’s the Same and What’s Been Updated in the 2020 Edition of the WIDA English Language Development Standards Framework?”

Find this and all other articles in the current issue of the MinneTESOL Journal.

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: [email protected]

Get to know MinneTESOL

Name: Ally Stephens
Position at MinneTESOL: Member Relations Director

Teaching context: I am the EL/ML lead teacher at an elementary school in Coon Rapids within the Anoka-Hennepin school district. We have an extremely diverse student population where 25% of our students come from multilingual homes and we have 26 different languages spoken within our building. Our top languages spoken are Arabic, Somali, Spanish, and Hmong. I have been a part of the Anoka-Hennepin for four years now.

Why I got into ESL: I have always wanted to become a teacher and worked hard to become one. I fell in love with teaching English when I had the opportunity to go teach in Thailand. I can remember standing in front of my first class and thinking to myself “This is it. This is exactly what I am supposed to be doing.” I came back to Minnesota and went right back to school and received a graduate degree in K-12 ESL.

Current project: Redoing my backyard! I bought my first house this past summer in July. I feel at peace when I am working outside and with my hands. I am excited to put a patio in myself this summer and plant all sorts of beautiful flowers and bushes.