At the beginning of November, Santa Fe in New Mexico was taken over by La Cosecha Dual Language Conference. More than 2,500 educators, researchers, and advocates for dual language education gathered to attend a number of talks, workshops, and social events to learn and share their expertise. Futuro Verde was selected to present at this prestigious event, with Lural Ramirez, Eileen Walschmidt, and Stuart Millar delivering a presentation titled, “Futuro Verde – Research and Teacher Education Opportunities.”
This was a valuable opportunity for Futuro Verde in many different ways. Conferences such as these keep us current, giving us access to the latest research and new teaching methods that will directly benefit our teachers and students. Also, La Cosecha gave us an opportunity to promote our school and the work we do so that educators from other countries and schools can also learn and grow in some way from our experiences, successes, and challenges. Collaboration and working in groups is something we believe in for our students to be successful in class and for our teachers to be able to offer the best learning experience. This was our opportunity to collaborate on a much bigger scale. By inviting researchers and educators to come to Futuro Verde we can: bring experts to our school; perhaps answer some big questions we have about our dual language program and how to advance it further; and contribute to the research and knowledge of others, impacting teachers and students globally and in the future.
There were numerous sessions available to the attendees. Stuart particularly enjoyed “Comparative literature: a path to enhance biliteracy and intercultural awareness” to learn more ways to connect our English and Spanish literacy classes, while Lural was inspired by a presentation on translanguaging to mold and design a future additional language course at Futuro Verde.
La Cosecha also provided us with a valuable opportunity to have a meeting with Dr. Kathy Escamilla, the keynote speaker for our BHS conference in 2017. We cannot wait to hear what this pioneer in the field of biliteracy has to tell us, and we know after our meeting that it will certainly be entertaining as well as hugely informative!