Sunday Opening Plenary Session Creating inclusive and affirming environments for emergent bilingual children Sonia Nieto, University of Massachusetts, Amherst (emeritus)
JW Grand Ballroom 8:45–10:15 a.m. The number and diversity of English learners, or emergent bilingual students, has grown dramatically in the past decade. Over 350 languages are spoken in the United States and currently almost one in four students in the nation speaks a language other than English at home. This means that all teachers from pre-K to 12 have, or will have, emergent bilingual students in their classrooms. As a result, all teachers need to learn strategies for teaching them. Just as important, they need to learn about the backgrounds, histories, and experiences of these students in order to teach them effectively. In this keynote address, Dr. Sonia Nieto will suggest both research-based approaches and
2018 NAEYC Professional Learning Institute
concrete strategies for working with emergent bilingual students and their families.Dr. Nieto has devoted her professional life to questions of diversity, equity, and social justice in education. She began her teaching career in 1966 in an intermediate school in Brooklyn, New York, later moving to P.S. 25, the first fully bilingual school in the Northeast. Since 1972, she has been a researcher, professor, and teacher educator, mostly at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Dr. Nieto has focused her research on multicultural education, teacher education, and the education of students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. She has written or edited 11 books, including Affirming Diversity, which was selected for The Museum of Education Readers’ Guide as one of the 100 books that helped define the field of education in the 20th century.
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