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| Celebrate Languages presents... Language Teacher of the Year |
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| SOCIAL MEDIA CONNECTIONS |
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| my résumé |
• CT LanguageTeacher of the Year
| CONNECTICUT 2018-2019 |
| Language |
| 2018-2019 |
| My personal story began on a little Dutch island in the Caribbean. |
| My Personal Story |
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| POLYGLOT ISLAND |
| LANGUAGE TEACHER OF THE YEAR |
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| I am the consummate language educator, polyglot, linguist, speech pathologist, dancer, musician, technologist, magician, social justice advocate and CT COLT’s Language Teacher of the Year! I use the unique combination of my multicultural/multilingual background, passion, ingenuity, humor, my expertise in diverse areas, my commitment to the 6 Core Practices & World Readiness Standards for Learning Languages, to connect the world of languages & cultures to my students’ personal worlds. In my classroom, I use a student-centered total immersion approach to teach for proficiency. And in my community, I endlessly advocate for equitable access to high quality language education for all learners, fueled by my belief that “learning languages is everyone’s birthright!” |
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I was born and raised in Aruba, a very ethnically / racially diverse, multilingual and multicultural environment, and spoke four languages in which I was engaged from birth: Dutch, Papiamento English & Spanish. By the end of high school, I had acquired native proficiency in all three modes of communication in the four languages. In college, I studied French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Japanese, and Greek for several years, while majoring in Speech-Language Pathology & Applied Linguistics. I also worked at the University of Sofia, in Bulgaria, teaching English for one summer. While there, I lived with a host family, immersed myself in the culture, and learned enough Bulgarian to meet my basic daily communication needs. A few years later, after graduating, I studied Tagalog on my own, and lived with a Filipino family in the Philippines for the summer. Today, I speak eight languages, with varying degrees of proficiency, and work as an Educator of World Languages & Cultures, in an urban school. As a result of my experiences, my work within and beyond the classroom is always fueled by passion, and by the conviction that indeed all learners, of every age background, ethnicity, ability, gender, orientation, and socio- economic status have the innate ability to learn languages and to develop cultural competence at any time throughout their lives, no matter who they are, where they live, or how they are perceived by others. However, unfortunately, far too often, this is not the conviction in many institutions in dominant and normative society. Often time, language learning privilege is readily available to members of dominant groups in normative society, while marginalized group members are in many ways discouraged and hindered from accessing the same opportunities. This is accomplished through insidious messaging to them, through images that simply “leave them out of the picture,” and practices that exclude them, or limit their access and burden their participation. It is for this reason today, as a Language Educator, I engage tirelessly in the work of facilitating language learning and developing cultural competence, through the lenses of Social Justice and Educational Equity. I do so passionately and without compromise, in and beyond my classroom, in my community, and wherever I go, simply by being present in spaces and places, as a successful language learner and multilingual Black man, in the United States of America, always with the hope to counteract the persistent messaging and narratives that particularly African American learners are sent in insidious ways. I leverage my website, social media platforms and community talks, raising the awareness of truly including all learners in the rewarding / valuable opportunities to learn languages and develop cultural competence, as all learners innately, ethically, rightfully, justly and equitably deserve! Language learning empowers and enables greater freedoms and joys throughout life, and develops empathy for others. The value in learning languages and developing cultural competence is therefore translated into all learners becoming better thinkers and communicators, more cognitively flexible, more adept problem solvers – to ultimately becoming more fully, healthy and empathetic, globally-ready citizens! |
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| NECTFL's (www.nectfl.org) 2019 |
| LANGUAGE TEACHER OF THE YEAR FINALIST |
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