On March 3, 2018, French teachers took part in a day-long workshop focusing on bi-literacy and the teaching of French in New York City. The “Building Biliteracy” teacher workshop was hosted by Boerum Hill School for International Studies in partnership with the American Association of Teachers of French and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy.
Sarah Brooks, 2nd year teacher at BHS and creator of their 6-9th grade bilingual curriculum, presented on her journey to facilitate student engagement in a multi-level classroom through differentiation. Her presentation included differentiation of task, student-choice, review of student work samples and a brief workshop to practice your differentiation skills within a given set of classroom criteria.
Marine Putman and Jessica Feinman, bilingual speech therapists at BHS, shared on their work with building language and speech skills for language learners both in and out of the classroom. Their presentation included techniques used by speech therapists which can serve in small group and full group instruction, as well as how to utilize your own speech therapists in your school.
Amber Drabot, who teaches in the French dual-language program at PS58 in Brooklyn, present some ideas about technology in the classroom to engage in conversation about the best websites, applications, strategies, etc. for bilingual classes. Finally, Elizabeth Atkins, IB and former AP French Teacher at Portledge School & Nathalie Coulon, IB and former AP French Teacher at Locust Valley High School, compared the tasks and the topics taught in the IB and AP programs.
