BESO officers and members attended the 24th RGV-TABE conference at the South Padre Convention Center, where they were able to attend different workshops and presentations where they were able to acquire many helpful skills, tips, and recommendations. Eight TABE Board members attended and presented at the 2019 National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) Conference in Orlando, Florida in March. Presantation topics varied from current research projects to effective strategies that foster the development of biliteracy, bilingualism, and biculturalism. Texas was well represented at NABE; many of our Texas bilingual educators presenting and attending the great sessions and keynote events.
STRENGTHENING PARENT-SCHOOL PARTNERSHIPS FOR DUAL LANGUAGE EDUCATION
The UTRGV Center for Bilingual Studies (CBS) and RGV Parents United for Excellent Dual Education (RGV PUEDE) recently held their third annual parent conference half of the 135 participants were bilingual directors and principals from the seven Valley school districts/charters that offer Dual Language Education, a model that fosters true bilingualism, biculturalism and biliteracy, enhanced awareness of cultural diversity, and the highest levels of academic achievement in both English and Spanish. The other half of the participants were parents from these same districts/charters. School districts represented included Donna ISD, Harlingen CISD, La Joya ISD, McAllen ISD, Mission ISD, Rio Grande City CISD, and Vanguard Academy. Parents from Edinburg ID and Brownsville ISD also came to encourage their districts to begin offering Dual Language Education.
EXAMINING A ONE-WAY DUAL LANGUAGE PROGRAM AFFECTED THE BILINGUAL STUDENTS REPORTED READING ACHIEVEMENT GAP
Director for the Center for Bilingual Studies, Dr. Esquierdo and Yuridia Muñoz, Graduate Research Assistant along with Dr. Almaguer presented research findings on bilingual education at AERA Conference that was held in Toronto, Canada. The research focused on examining how one-way dual language educational programs of a school in the RGV impacted the reported achievement gap for Latino bilingual learners.
DUAL LANGUAGE CELEBRATION
The Center for Bilingual Studies hosted educational leaders from the RGV school districts that implemented Dual Language Education. Dr. Michael Hinojosa delivered an inspiration keynote encouraging superintendents, principals, and all educators to continue the gret work with all bilingual students through the enrichment of Dual Language Education.
TORNEO DE ORTOGRAFÍA
The Torneo de Ortografía is a University of Texas Rio Grande Valley tradition. The college of Education has been hosting the torneo(Spelling Bee) for the past 19 years in order to provide bilingual students a venue to demonstrate their spelling abilities in their native language, Spanish. The torneo is the only free academic compatition in Spanish from 2nd-12th grade students from the region, an area of about 100 miles radius. The event began in 2004 with less than 50 participants from one school district and has grown since. This year our torneo took place on April 1st, 2023 from 9:00am to 12:00pm in the College of Education.
SOCIAL STUDIES THROUGH AUTHENTIC AND RELEVANT CONTENT PROJECT
Project STARC is a two- year collaborative project between the Center for Bilingual Studies and the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley and local school districts in the Rio Grande Valley. The project aims to provide an opportunity for local elementary (grade levels K-5) teachers to gain better knowledge of local and regional history, create relevant social studies content for their students in both English and Spanish, and disseminate the content on a wide scale to enrich the schooling experience of students and expose them to authentic and relevant humanities content early on in their lives. This project will bring together four scholars of Mexican American Studies to develop content to deliver to K-5 teachers at two different 4-day workshops. The scholars content, that includes learning modules and presentations with recommended readings, will be housed online. Teachers will then refine and implement these lessons over the following fall. Project directors and key personnel will conduct site visits to observe the teachers implementing the lesson plans and providing feedback.