MELEd Conference News

Our 10th annual conference will be held November 16-18, 2023
at the Saint Paul RiverCentre.

The Minnesota English Learner Education (MELEd) Conference is a partnership between MinneTESOL and the Minnesota Department of Education.  This year, we are excited to announce an additional collaboration with the Minnesota Humanities Center and Minnesota Advocates for Immersion Network (MAIN). We come together to share information and network across Minnesota ESL, Migrant Education, Dual Language Immersion, and the humanities within multilingual/multicultural contexts. 

MELEd 2023  – Attend for Free

We have created several options to make the MELEd Conference accessible. To attend MELEd at a greatly reduced rate, you can … 

• Apply for a 1st Time Attendee Scholarship (for those new to the conference)
• Volunteer Your Time at the Conference (work 2+ hours, get 1 day of conference attendance)
• Apply for a Travel Scholarship (for attendees traveling 250+ miles for the conference)

MELEd 2023 Keynote Speakers 

This year we are excited to welcome as Keynotes:

• Friday, November 17 – Tan Huynh, Empowering ELLs Target Audience: K-12 ESL 
• Saturday, November 18 – Kevin Lindsey & Dr. Michael Favor Target Audience: MN Humanities Center, Dual Language Immersion, College, Adult Basic Ed, Teacher Ed

For more information about our keynote speakers, go to the MinneTESOL website .

MELEd 2023 Award Nominations

Nominations are open for two annual awards. Award nominees must be a current member of MinneTESOL. 

Nominations will be considered by a committee of MinneTESOL Interest Section leaders and Standing Committee Leaders, under the leadership of the organization’s First Vice-President. Awards include: 

• The Harold B. Allen Award, honoring outstanding service to the field
• The Mary Diaz Award, highlighting achievements in advocacy.  

Please fill out this form to submit your award nominations by November 3, 2023. 

The selection committee welcomes nominations of a diverse group of candidates in terms of teaching context, geography, background, and experience.  Awards recipients and their nominating parties will be notified by early November, and awards will be presented to the winners at the annual business meeting during the Friday morning of this year’s MELEd conference (Friday, November 17, 2023). Winners will receive registration to the conference and a show of recognition.

You may submit nominations for one or both awards. If you are ONLY submitting for one award, write in “N/A” in response to all other questions marked as required. Thank you in advance for nominating your inspiring colleagues!

Getting to know MinneTESOL 

Name: Jenna Hafner

Position at MinneTESOL: Regional Liaison 

Teaching Context: EL teacher at Willmar Senior High School 

Why you got into ESL: I wanted to make an impact on my hometown community of Willmar and strengthen our multilingual youth and families. 

Current project: I am dedicated to researching the literacy development of adolescent ELs. 

MinneTESOL journal featured article 

Teacher-researcher team Alayna Klco, Kelly Grucelski, Danielle Joo, and Sam David share findings from their research in “Leveraging students’ home languages through translation: Teacher’s adaptations for sheltered content instruction.” This study examined how teachers can engage students in effective literacy practices across all subject areas by using pedagogical translation to incorporate translanguaging pedagogy.

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] 

Language Teacher Coffee Gathering

On September 23, 2023, MinneTESOL sponsored a Language Teacher Coffee Gathering for ASL, ESL, and World Language educators in East Central and North East Minnesota.

Laura Martell gave a presentation on how to make reading texts accessible by providing multiple points of entry.

Language educators coffee gathering (2023-09-23 09:38 GMT-5)

Besides being fun, in a unique location, the conversation, discussion, advocacy postcards, and presentation were all enriching.

It is customary at these twice-yearly professional development meetings to write and send advocacy cards to local, state, and federal decision-makers.  Here is Toni writing a message to the school board members in her geographic teaching area for adult ELs and ABE students.

Did you know?

Past MinneTESOL newsletters can be found on our website, at http://minnetesol.org/minnetesol-newsletters

We want to hear from you

We are always looking for information to share from our members. Please send newsletter submissions to [email protected].