UTA New Teacher Webinar “Resources and Information for Teaching Multilingual Learners”, April 19, 2014 w/ Dr. Peggy Semingson The University of Texas of Arlington presents the Spring, 2013 New Teacher Webinar Series as part of our Teacher Induction Project. The purpose of the Teacher Induction Project is to build "digital community" for current students and alumni of the department as well as new teachers beyond UT Arlington in the global community. Link to the recording: https://elearn.uta.edu/webapps/bb-collaborate-bb_bb60/recording/launchGuest?uid=0df471b4-23a0-4129-8dc2-ade6b8782cc9 Recordings available in archives YouTube Channel (UTA New Teachers) https://www.youtube.com/user/UTANewTeachers slideshare (UTA New Teachers): http://www.slideshare.net/utanewteachers and today's slideshare (4/19/14): http://www.slideshare.net/UTANewTeachers/march-29-webinar-with-dr-peggy-semingson-multilingual-esl Questions: Contact Dr. Peggy Semingson at peggys@uta.edu or Dr. Amber Brown amberb@exchange.uta.edu Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/UT-Arlington-Curriculum-and-Instruction/119343291449696?ref=hl Twitter: @UTANewTeachers YouTube: http://youtube.com/utanewteachers Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/UTANewTeachers/ Master’s degree at UT Arlington in Mind, Brain and Education: http://www.uta.edu/coehp/gradadvising/programs/curricandinstruct/mind-brain-and-education.php Email: schwarma@uta.ed Dr. Marc Schwartz

1. UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON
DEPT. OF CURRICULUM AND INSTRUCTION
NEW TEACHER WEBINAR 6
Advice for New Teachers
SATURDAY, MARCH 29, 2014
11 AM-12 PM, CST
“RESOURCES AND INFORMATION FOR
TEACHING MULTILINGUAL LEARNERS”
WITH DR. PEGGY SEMINGSON
*Recordings will be available of webinars.
No names will be visible in the recordings.
The recording will be available on our
YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/utanewteachers

2. These are our opinions and
suggestions!
 The opinions of each of the panelists are their own individual
viewpoints. 
 Our goal is for you to hear a variety of viewpoints to help
support you in your first years of teaching! We have been
down the road you are going! 
GOALS/GUIDELINES
 Support
 Respect
 Dialogue
 Sharing

3. Mission Statement
[WORKING] MISSION STATEMENT
 Teacher Induction Project: Building Digital Community:
The purpose of the Teacher Induction Project is to begin to build
"digital community" for current students and alumni of the
department as well as new teachers beyond UT Arlington in the
global community. The focus is primarily on creating and
disseminating open-access resources that support new
teachers in their early career stages. The focus will be on digital
interactivity and participation around essential topics to new
teachers. Monthly webinars present information from UT
Arlington faculty as well as prominent national speakers in the
field. The blog houses updated tips and advice for new
teachers. We also have an ongoing podcast series where UTA
Education faculty share advice on topics related to the
webinars! http://blog.uta.edu/utanewteachers/

4. Recordings are accessible via the blog
and dept. Facebook page
Archive of Resources and Social Media:
YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/utanewteachers
MixCloud:
http://www.mixcloud.com/UTANewTeachers/
UTA New Teacher Blog:
http://blog.uta.edu/utanewteachers/
Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/UTANewTeacherProje
ct

5. Logistical & technical tips
Ask questions along the way. Main Q/A at
the end.
Make a list of “Things to Google” later.
Bookmark links
Use chat window often. We will check
it throughout it and respond in “real
time” .

6. Spring Webinar Topics!
Join us!
Webinar Information Spring, 2014
Saturday, April 19; 11:00 AM
 Technology ; speaker(s): TBA

7. UTA New Teachers Blog
http://blog.uta.edu/utanewteachers/
*We will post webinar recordings here.

8. Where we are now:
Building Digital Community
Thanks for joining us!
Feel free to type your location in the chat window!

9. Poll question:
Where are you in your teaching
career?
Select A-E Voting is optional! We will display the results!
 The drop down polling area is in the participants window next to the “hand”
tool.
I am currently a:
A. Pre-service teacher
B. 1st-3rd year teacher & UTA graduate
C. 1st-3rd year teacher & non-UTA graduate
D. 4th year+ teacher
E. Faculty or none of the above

10. “RESOURCES AND
INFORMATION FOR
TEACHING MULTILINGUAL
LEARNERS”
WITH DR. PEGGY
SEMINGSON
Mark Conley, The University of Texas at Arlington

11. Bio
Dr. Peggy Semingson is an Assistant Professor of Curriculum and
Instruction at The University of Texas at Arlington where she teaches
courses in Literacy Studies. Dr. Semingson has eight years of
experience as an elementary classroom teacher and bilingual reading
specialist in both Southern California and Texas; in Texas she was a
bilingual and ESL teacher for five years. She received her M.Ed. in
Reading Education from Texas State University, San Marcos in 2004 and
her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with a specialization in
Language and Literacy Studies from The University of Texas at Austin in
2008.
Her research interests include social contexts of literacy learning, digital
pedagogies, and students who face challenges in reading. She has
published in Teachers College Record and other peer-reviewed journals.
She was awarded the Jeanne S. Chall Research Grant from Harvard
University during 2009-2010 and received the Platinum level--Best
Practices Award for Excellence in Distance Learning Teaching from the
United States Distance Learning Association in 2013. She was awarded
the Regents’ Outstanding Teaching Award by the UT System in 2013.

12. Learn more about teaching and
locating resources to better
facilitate learning for students
whose native language is not
English. Learn how to build on
strengths of students!

13. Big Ideas
 Demographic changes
 Language Acquisition
 Scaffolding (linguistic, visual, social-collaborative)
 Building on strengths
 Locating resources (bilingual books, etc.)
 Life-long learners: our students and ourselves

14. About my own background
 Former bilingual educator
 “Ser bilingüe es un regalo”
 Bordertown of San Diego-learned Spanish
 What I learned from my students and their families

15. Demographic changes
 Students learning English are greatly increasing
demographically; students labeled as having limited English
proficiency have increased 95 percent from 1991-1992 to
2001-2002 (National Clearinghouse for English Language
Acquisition, 2002, as cited in Echevarria, Vogt, & Short,
2004).

16. Language Acquisition
Academic English
Content objectives vs language
objectives
Language components: reading,
writing, listening, speaking
Scarcella, R. (2003). Academic English: A Conceptual Framework.
The University of California Linguistic Minority Research Institute.
Technical Report 2003-1.

17. Today I will mainly focus on…
 Bilingual books
 Scaffolding
 Resources
 Dialogue amongst ourselves!

18. For more information on second
language acquisition
 Center for Applied Linguistics
http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/instructed2ndlang.html
Join their mailing list:
http://www.cal.org/join/index.html
Read the digests:
http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/index.html
Dr. Stephen Krashen’s Website:
http://www.sdkrashen.com/

19. Resources: YouTube Videos on second language learning;
multilingualism; bilingualism; etc
Defining Key Concepts in Language and Literacy Development
with Dr. Peggy Semingson and Dr. Jodi Tommerdahl
http://youtu.be/pu9Sik0-z_A

20. Use Social Media pages for
ongoing learning
 Colorín Colorado is on Facebook and Twitter

21. Professional Organizations
 TESOL
 NABE (National Association of Bilingual Education)
 Texas: TABE (Texas Association of Bilingual Education)
 What else?

22. NCTE Position Statement
 http://www.ncte.org/cee/positions/diverselearnersinee
 Supporting Linguistically and Culturally Diverse
Learners in English Education
 National Council of Teachers of English http://www.ncte.org

23. Scaffolding (linguistic, visual,
social-collaborative)
 Handouts and visual aides
 Word walls
 Morphemes to unlock linguistic meaning [prefixes, suffixes,
structural analysis]
Examples:
Character trait chart from readwritethink.org
Popplet
What else?

24. Concept Mapping with Digital Tools
Pre-writing; vocabulary development; tool for oral language
development; reading comprehension (pre/during/post-reading)
 http://popplet.com/app/#/601777

25. Bilingual Books are for Everyone!
 In this video I share my favorite bilingual books for teaching.
They focus on the narratives that draw primarily from folklore,
biculturalism, and/or the author's own life experiences as an
immigrant.
 http://youtu.be/7GyThJr4A5U

26. Provide discussion prompts in
English to focus on form of the
language
 Something that surprised me…
 I am feeling…
 My connection is….
 I liked….
 I did not like….
 A wondering I have is….
 I’m predicting….
 This was a picture I had in my mind...
 I liked/did not like the character,
_____________because…

27. Building on strengths
 Example: the family photography project
 Spielman, J. (2001). The Family Photography Project: “We
will just read what the pictures tell us.” The Reading Teacher,
54, 762–770.
 My own dissertation research with building on this idea.
 How could you use these ideas in your own classroom with
all students? How would this project benefit students who are
learning English?

28. Funds of Knowledge
 Moll, L. C. & González, N. (2004) Engaging Life: A Funds of
Knowledge Approach to Multicultural Education. In J. Banks
& C. McGee Banks (Eds.), Handbook of research on
multicultural education (pp. 699-715), (2nd ed.). San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

29. Building on strengths: the power of
family (Semingson, 2008)
“O.K., Let’s figure it out all
together.”
 Usually on reading group days, Yolanda comes with a bunch of stories,
and she’s so excited and her reading buddy did this and said that, and
the stories that she read. She’ll tell us, like, everything happened to her
in one day. So we talk for a long time and we discuss things. Like I said,
if I’m reading and she comes in and she wants me to read to her, we sit
and I read to her...She’ll sit down and do homework. And the reading is
usually right before we go to sleep. We’ll lay down. We lay down, and
whoever has the reading left-- It’s usually [sister or brother] that had a
little bit harder time with a reading problem or something and we’ll sit
down and say “O.K., Let’s figure it out all together.”

 --Alejandra Benidez, single mother of a second grade student
identified as having challenges in reading

30. Technology tool: Screenchomp (free iPad
app). Can do screencasting (audio and
video)
Heart Mapping + technology +
multi-modal literacies

31. For further reading
 Dworin, J. E. (2006). The Family Stories Project: Using funds
of knowledge for writing. Reading Teacher, 59(6), 510-520.
doi:10.1598/RT.59.6.1
 I will send a bibliography of recommended reading through
the webinar! If it doesn’t come through, email me to receive
it: peggys@uta.edu

32. My own research and writing
related to bilingual learners
 Semingson, P. (2013). “Saber dos lenguas es saber dos mundos”: Thoughts from a
White bilingual educator. In Judith James & Nancy Peterson, (Eds.) White women
getting real: Stories of how culturally diverse schools transformed teachers. Sterling,
VA: Stylus
Publishing. http://stylus.styluspub.com/Books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=238772
 Semingson, P. (July, 2013). Poets, artists, and storytellers: Bilingual, bicultural and
transnational narratives. Bookbird: A Journal of International Children's Literature. 25%
acceptance rate. http://www.ibby.org/index.php?id=1332
 Amaro-Jimenez, C., & Semingson, P. (2011, September/October). Tapping into the
funds of knowledge of culturally and linguistically diverse students and families. NABE
News, 5-8.http://www.nabe.org/files/NN_33n5_sept2011_Nov2011.pdf
 Amaro-Jiménez, C. & Semingson, P. (2010)."Sometimes I don't know how to help you
but I'll try:" Latina mothers' participation in their children's biliteracy learning in the
home", National Journal of Urban Education and Practice. 4(2) 33-48

33. Locating resources (bilingual
books)
 Taxonomy of Bilingual Books
 1)* Parallel text in two languages
 2) Books entirely in the foreign language or native language:
3) Embedded language:
 4) Books only available in the second/non-English language.
 Source: Ernst-Slavit & Mulhem (2003).

34. Author study example: Carmen
Lomas Garza
 Drawing on cultural identity
 Family
 Can be used for reading and writing instruction
 Author’s web site can be studied
 Multi-modal learning

35. Explore author’s websites
 Another good one:
 http://www.patmora.com/
 What can we learn?
 What types of intersections can we examine such as language,
culture, immigration, school, home, family?
 What other authors do you know that celebrate being
multilingual? What challenges did they face? How can we bring
these books into our classrooms? How can we study the
author’s own narrative and how can that inspire our students?


36. A strategy: Experience-Text-
Relationship (Au, 1979)
 Au, K. H. (1979). Using the experience-text-relationship
method with minority children. The Reading Teacher,
32(6), 677-679.
 Integrates language and literacy in a holistic approach that is
grounded in students'’ background experiences.

37. Experience
 EXPERIENCE-Pre-reading:
 What will you say to get students to share and discuss
their personal experiences and prior/background
knowledge prior to reading the text? (this can be done in
a written format, for example, in a journal).

38. Text

 TEXT- Guiding questions for during reading instruction:

 1.
 2.
 3.

39. Relationship
 RELATIONSHIP-Post-reading-How will you help the
students make connections between the text and their
own lives?

40. Publishers/Centers of Multilingual
Materials:
 Cinco Puntos Press http://www.cincopuntos.com/
 Children’s Book Press http://www.childrensbookpress.org/
 Bilingual Books for Kids, Inc. http://www.bilingualbooks.com/
 Lectorum (Spanish and Bilingual): http://www.lectorum.com/
 Raven Tree Press (Spanish/English) http://www.raventreepress.com
 Arte Público Press http://benito.arte.uh.edu/
 Pan Asian Publications http://www.panap.com/
 Culture for Kids http://www.cultureforkids.com/
 Books Without Borders http://www.bookswithoutborders.com/
 MantraLingua Publishing www.mantralingua.com
 Shen’s Books www.shensbooks.com

41. More Resources
Guided Web Tour:
Colorín Colorado
 Let’s look at this website together
 What resources can you locate?
 How might you use this?
 What other similar resources are out there for educators and
families?
 http://www.colorincolorado.org/
 Subscribe to their e-newsletter
 Check their website often
 Share it with others

42. Life-long learners: our students
and ourselves
 How can we help students and families maintain their
language and heritage?
 How can we learn more about our students’ linguistic and
cultural resources?

43. Advocacy
“How can I be an advocate for my students and their families?”
“How can I learn more about demographic changes?”
“How can I learn more about linguistic and cultural resources in
this state?
Type in the chat window

44. What Can Teachers Do?
 Whenever possible, incorporate ideas about the future in
lessons.
 Difficult to do sometimes with the (over) emphasis on
standards and assessments.
 Invite community members and business people to come in
and talk about their careers and daily lives.
 Create instructional contexts for students’ future lives.

45. What do you think?
Optional-type in the chat window!
 What information stood out to you from
Dr. Conley and Dr. Semingson’s presentation?
 What questions do you have?
“I hope to think more about.…”
“I learned….”
“I want to know….”

46. Thanks to everyone for attending!

47. Recordings are accessible via the blog
and dept. Facebook page
Archive of Resources and Social Media:
YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/utanewteachers
MixCloud:
http://www.mixcloud.com/UTANewTeachers/
UTA New Teacher Blog:
http://blog.uta.edu/utanewteachers/
Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/UTANewTeacherProje
ct

48. Be part of the knowledge network!
We hope to see you again on the
New Teacher Webinar series!
 Learn more!
 Become a better teacher.
 Stay encouraged.
 Connect with other educators and UTA
Faculty in an informal, low key online
setting!
 Please let others know about our webinar
series and blog!
 For questions or comments, email Dr. Semingson
peggys@uta.edu