Greetings from the Secondary ENL SIG!
Back to Blog
Happy September! As we kick off our first blog post as Co-Chairs of the Secondary ENL Educators Special Interest Group (SIG), we hope everyone is enjoying a smooth back-to-school season. In this first blog post, we will introduce ourselves and share our ideas about leadership for this SIG.
My name is Pedro Rodriguez and I am eager to serve as the co-chair to the Special Interest Group “ENL Secondary”. I am a passionate, caring and dedicated bilingual educator. I am eager to help develop a network of passionate educators and school leaders to promote the academic success of multilingual learners at the secondary level. My passion as an educator is to promote 21st century skills to ensure all students are successful academically regardless of their socio-economic background or linguistic abilities. I also believe in promoting bilingualism, biliteracy, and socio-cultural competence while creating an equitable, rigorous and supportive learning environment for all. I hold professional teaching certifications in Secondary Social Studies grades 5-12, Special Education grades 7-12, Teaching English to Students of Other Languages grades K-12, Bilingual Education grades K-12 in Spanish and Portuguese, as well as School Building and District Leadership certifications.
Within my thirteen years as an educator, I have worked in various settings where I have effectively served multicultural and multilingual school districts. In my teaching experience I have successfully taught in General Education, Sheltered Instruction, Dual Language and Co-taught classrooms at the Middle and High School levels.
My name is Karen Gregory and I am excited to be co-chairing the NYS TESOL SIG for Secondary ENL educators. In this role, Pedro and I are committed to bringing our members relevant research and resources, timely information from the field, and opportunities to collaborate and network. After almost 30 years in education, with many years of experience as a high school ENL and Spanish teacher, and now as a professor of TESOL in the Education Department at Siena University, I am a passionate advocate for multilingual education. I have spent my professional life teaching new languages, teaching about learning languages, and teaching others how to teach languages, all with the deep conviction that multilingual, multicultural, and inclusive education will make the world a better place. In my current role as a TESOL professor at Siena, I support new and current teachers in developing their knowledge and skills to effectively teach multilingual learners in grades pK-12 as I also conduct research on best practices for teaching ENL. My most recent work, featured in the NYS TESOL Journal, relates to the importance of developing rigorous, standards-aligned curriculum for stand-alone ENL. Other research interests include performance based assessment, and content-language-literacy integrated instruction. I plan to share the knowledge and experience that I have gained over the years with the NYS TESOL Secondary ENL SIG membership and I look forward to expanding my network and learning with and from one another through this professional community of practice.
Together, Pedro and I will be offering professional development and networking opportunities for members of the Secondary ENL SIG starting in October. We hope you’ll be able to join us on October 26, from 4- 5:30 (online via Zoom) where we will facilitate a session devoted to the NYS move to WIDA assessments and what that means for educators this school year.
Update from VP of Communications:
Please register here for the event: https://www.viethconsulting.com/Calendar/moreinfo.php?eventid=230372