Bridgeport Public Schools

Message from Ana Sousa Martins, BPS Director of Bilingual Education and World Languages

We are proud to announce our 7th Annual English Learner Summit. Our goal for the English Learner Summit is to empower every teacher that attends with current best practices to meet the needs of all English Learners. This school year, Bridgeport Public Schools has experienced an unprecedented volume of immigrant students. This has resulted in higher instructional demands by all staff to meet the varying academic, social, emotional, and linguistic needs of our English Learners.  Our EL Summit will address these complex and challenging issues.

We will be presenting cutting-edge research and pedagogy to improve teaching and learning for all ELs. I look forward to meeting all of you at this galvanizing event. We hope to establish a network of teachers dedicated to improving teaching and learning for all English Language Learners.

Message from Dr. Jose Viana, Lexia Learning Senior Advisor

Our nation’s English learners are hoping to defeat the pervasive deficit model view and be considered English “users” instead.  Please join Jose Viana as he provides alternatives to the deficit model.  It begins with understanding the negative narratives faced by multilingual students.  Then, Jose will examine Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy and the importance of building learning capacity by leveraging learners’ backgrounds.  The keynote will also include 5 Guiding Principles for designing learning experiences for language development based on the asset model.  Don’t miss this opportunity to support equity in instruction.