Working with Emergent Bilingual Students

Students who speak languages other than English and who are learning English at school are commonly referred to as “English Language Learners.” We prefer the term emergent bilinguals because it acknowledges the ways these students draw on rich home language practices as they learn, and because it places their bilingualism at the center of our understandings of their needs and strengths. The primary focus of the CUNY-NYSIEB project is to improve the educational outcomes for emergent bilinguals. It is our stance that for schools to be successful at meeting the needs of emergent bilingual students they must develop ecologies of bilingualism that build on the home language practices of their students. My work with CUNY-NYSIEB is to support schools in improving the education of emergent bilinguals through professional development workshops.

Working with educators to transform teaching

Transformative Learning in the Humanities is a three-year initiative supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The grant supports public talks, symposia, and workshops as well as a series of intensive peer-to-peer faculty seminars for CUNY faculty at all ranks (including adjuncts) in the humanities, arts, and interpretive social sciences. The program focuses on equitable, creative, student-centered pedagogical research and methods designed for the rich diversity of CUNY students; greater recognition for the importance of teaching; and the role of an urgent and indispensable humanities for the future of CUNY students and a more just and equitable society.