Published in ConnectED Newsletter - Volume 5 - Issue 2 - June 2022
Professors Nancy Stern (B.A., The College of William and Mary; M.Phil. and Ph.D., CUNY) and Tatyana Kleyn (B.S., Ohio State University; M.E. and Ed.D., Teachers College) are the recipients of a 5-year, $3 million National Professional Development (NPD) grant from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA). Their project, entitled “B-SEAL for Multilingual Learners,” will support secondary teachers and principals to address the academic and socioemotional needs of multilingual learners (also known as English learners) in New York City schools.
This new award builds on and expands the successes of the Multilingual Learner Project (MLP), the first NPD grant that Stern and Kleyn, faculty in the School of Education’s Programs in Bilingual Education and TESOL, have received. Both projects have been in partnership with New Visions for Public Schools, including Moira Wilkinson, an adjunct faculty member in the School of Education, and Andrea Velikov.
B-SEAL, which will prepare school-based teams of middle and high school teachers along with at least one leader from each school, is an acronym for Building Secondary English Learner Educator and Administrator Leadership. The name evokes the Seal of Biliteracy, an award given by schools in New York State in recognition of students who have studied and attained proficiency in more than one language by high school graduation.
Participating in-service teachers can earn New York State certification in either TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) or a Bilingual Extension, with all tuition and fees covered by the project. The project provides school leaders with professional development hours in a Professional Learning Community (PLC) to help them better understand the needs of multilingual learners, and to develop responsive structures and effective programming for these students. With more dually certified teachers (content area and either TESOL or Bilingual Education), schools will have more flexibility to support their multilingual learners.
Like MLP, B-SEAL will serve approximately 80 teachers over five years. Four cohorts of teachers will complete the 18-month program, which includes CCNY coursework as well as school-based individual and team coaching. By including teams of teachers and school leaders, the project aims to impact the education of multilingual learners throughout each participating school.
While the first cohort of B-SEAL has begun coursework, there are spaces available in next year’s cohort. New York City Department of Education secondary teachers and/or school leaders who are interested in this opportunity in the 2022-23 academic year should begin to form a team and can contact Professor Stern ( nstern@ccny.cuny.edu ) for more information.
Last Updated: 06/01/2022 15:27