Ricardo Otheguy is professor of Linguistics at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. His work in theoretical and applied linguistics has appeared in major international journals such as Language, Language in Society, Spanish in Context, Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, the Modern Language Journal, and the Harvard Educational Review. His publications in theoretical linguistics are in the areas of language contact, functional grammar, and the Spanish of the United States; in applied linguistics, his publications are in the area of bilingual education and the teaching of Spanish as a home language and as a second or foreign language. He is coauthor of Spanish in New York: Language Contact, Dialectal Leveling, and Structural Continuity; coeditor of Sign, meaning, and message: Perspectives on sign-based linguistics; and was founding editor of the journal Spanish in Context. Otheguy has developed textbook materials for the teaching of Spanish to Latino students in the United States and is coauthor of Tu Mundo: Curso para hispanohablantes. He has also written Spanish materials for English-speaking students and is coauthor of one the most widely used high school Spanish textbooks in the United States, Avancemos.

Ofelia García is a professor in the Ph.D. programs of Urban Education and of Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She has been Professor of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism at Columbia University´s Teachers College, Dean of the School of Education at the Brooklyn Campus of Long Island University, and Professor of Education at The City College of New York. García has published widely in the areas of bilingualism, bilingual education, sociology of language, and language policy. She is the General Editor of the International Journal of the Sociology of Language and the co-editor of Language Policy (with H. Kelly-Holmes). Among her best-known books are Bilingual Education in the 21st Century: A Global Perspective; and Translanguaging; Language, Bilingualism and Education (with Li Wei), which received the 2015 British Association of Applied Linguistics Award.

Kate Menken is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at Queens College of the City University of New York (CUNY), and a Research Fellow at the Research Institute for the Study of Language in Urban Society at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is Co-Principal Investigator of the CUNY-New York State Initiative for Emergent Bilinguals (NYSIEB) project, Associate Editor/Review Editor for the journal Language Policy, and chair of AERA’s Bilingual Education Research SIG. Previously, she was a researcher at the National Clearinghouse for Bilingual Education and an English as a second language teacher. She holds an Ed.D. from Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research interests include language education policy, bilingual education, and emergent bilinguals in secondary schools. Recent books are English Learners Left Behind: Standardized Testing as Language Policy (Multilingual Matters, 2008) and Negotiating Language Policies in Schools: Educators as Policymakers (co-edited with Ofelia García, Routledge, 2010).

CUNY-New York State Initiative on Emergent Bilinguals (NYSIEB) works to improve the education of emergent bilingual students across New York State. It is a collaborative project of the Research Institute for the Study of Language in Urban Society (RISLUS) and the Ph.D. Program in Urban Education funded by the New York State Education Department from 2011 to the present.

The Center for Integrated Language Communities (CILC) focuses on language education in the community college context, on heritage language learners, and on the use of educational technology to foster intercultural connections. The research, dissemination and materials development activities that CILC conducts serve to better integrate lingua-cultural communities of practice both small and large: from families, churches and companies to K-12 schools, colleges and governmental organizations.

Alberta Gatti is the Director of the Center for Integrated Language Communities (CILC, a National Language Resource Center), and of the Institute for Language Education in Transcultural Context (ILETC) at The Graduate Center, City University of New York. Her research and teaching has focused on language education and on Spanish literature of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Before coming to New York, she directed the Foreign Languages Program and the Center for Engaged Learning Environments (CELE) at Saint Xavier University, Chicago. Teresa O’Neill recently joined CILC and ILETC as Assistant Director. Her research and teaching experience combines theoretical and applied linguistics, with particular interests in language variation and less commonly taught languages. She has taught linguistics, TESOL, and languages across CUNY and neighboring institutions. She also works in the field of language documentation, participating in projects to revitalize endangered languages. The Writing Proficiency of Heritage Learners Project (WPHL) studies the writing proficiency of heritage learners of Korean, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish. The project investigates the relationship between proficiency and various biographical features (context of acquisition, educational experiences, frequency and context of language use) and aims at the creation of linguistic profiles that will be used to make pedagogical recommendations. The project is conducted in conjunction with the American Council of the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL).

Alex Funk is coordinator of CILC’s LCCN initiative. He holds a Ph.D. in linguistics from the Graduate Center, CUNY, and currently teaches mathematics at Patterson High School in Baltimore. Tomonori Nagano is coordinator of the CILC LCCN project. He received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the Graduate Center (CUNY), and is Assistant Professor of Japanese and Coordinator of the Modern Languages and Literatures Program at LaGuardia Community College (CUNY). Language at the Community College Nexus conducted surveys of 1809 students and 148 instructors of languages at 107 community colleges in 33 states.  The results shed light on the questions of who studies languages at community colleges and why, as well as who teaches languages at community colleges and how?

Stephanie Love is a Ph.D. student in linguistic anthropology at the CUNY Graduate Center. She holds a B.A. (2003) in anthropology and political science and a M.Ed. (2011) in Language, Literacy and Culture (Curriculum and Instruction) from University of Washington, Seattle. Her research interests include languages in movement, ethnography of the Mediterranean, Arabic sociolinguistics, schooling in the age of migration, literacy, and questions of gender, racial formation, nationalism and language in Europe. She has lived, taught and studied in Italy, France and the US. Alexander Elinson, Associate Professor of Arabic Language and Literature and Director of the Hunter College Summer Arabic Program, received his M.A. (1998) from the University of Washington in Seattle, and Ph.D. (2004) in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures from Columbia University. His research interests cut across the Middle East and North Africa, and include Arabic and Hebrew literature from the pre-Islamic to the modern period. His book entitled Looking Back at al-Andalus: the poetics of loss and nostalgia in medieval Arabic and Hebrew Literature is published by Brill. Professor Elinson has published articles, reviews and translations on the Arabic and Hebrew strophic poem (zajal and muwashshah), rhymed prose narrative (maqama), and modern Arabic poetry and narrative in numerous peer-reviewed journals. In addition to projects dealing with late medieval Muslim Spain and North Africa (stemming from research conducted with a Fulbright fellowship in 2010), he is currently working on a book project focusing on writing practices in Morocco, specifically the use of Moroccan colloquial Arabic in novels, shorts stories, poetry, translation, and journalistic writing. CILC is developing and publishing a Heritage Arabic eBook. Until recently, the dominant focus of Arabic language teaching in the U.S. has been Modern Standard Arabic. However, educators have been moving in the direction of incorporating spoken Arabic into the curriculum to better mirror the linguistic reality of the Arab world. This creates a situation in which heritage students either vastly outpace true beginners in speaking and listening comprehension or are pushed to learn other (spoken) dialects that they are familiar with, but not particularly interested in developing. A team of faculty experts from 4-year and community colleges has been surveying existing materials, curating the scholarly work on Arabic heritage learners, developing materials, piloting them in the classroom, and compiling them in an electronic book that will be freely available on CILC’s website.

Laura Villa is Assistant Professor in Hispanic Languages and Literatures at Queens College (CUNY), and received her Ph.D. in Hispanic Linguistics from the Graduate Center (CUNY). Her research explores the intersections between language and politics in the Spanish-speaking world from historical and contemporary perspectives. Dr. Villa has designed and taught several heritage courses, including one for 9th graders in an Early College Experience Program, and, as her department’s Language Coordinator, is redesigning the current placement system in order to better serve Queens’s student population. Aránzazu Borrachero is Associate Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures of Queensborough Community College (CUNY), where she designed, developed, and assessed the Spanish Heritage track. She holds an M.S. in Developmental Reading and Writing from The City College (CUNY) and a Ph.D. in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures from The Graduate School and University Center (CUNY). Her areas of interest and specialization include Spanish for Heritage Speakers, Critical Pedagogy, and Spanish Cultural and Gender Studies. Michael Rolland is a fourth-year PhD student in Hispanic Linguistics at the Graduate Center and a Spanish instructor at Brooklyn College. His research focuses on the sociopolitical aspects of contact between Spanish and other languages, especially in the United States and Spain. He is particularly interested in the interaction of politics and group identity in multilingual settings. CILC is creating, piloting, and evaluating Heritage Telecollaboration modules in Spanish and Mandarin Chinese heritage courses. The proliferation of digital communication platforms has greatly enhanced opportunities for long-distance interactions and intercultural experiences, but successfully incorporating these technologies within the structures and demands of traditional language classrooms and programs is no simple matter. Partnering with universities in the U.S. and abroad, CILC will electronically publish a roadmap on how to design, implement, and assess heritage telecollaboration modules for four-year and community colleges. CILC will curate an online collection of materials to provide educators with the necessary theoretical background on using telecollaboration modules in heritage language courses, focusing mainly on the advancement of language proficiency as well as on exploring issues of language and identity. In 2018, CILC will offer workshops on how to create, implement, and asses telecollaboration modules intended for heritage language courses.

Professor Gita Martohardjono is the Co-Director of the Research Institute for the Study of Language in Urban Society, and the Director of the Second Language Acquisition Laboratory at the CUNY Graduate Center. Professor Martohardjono’s research on bilingual students is driven by the notion that bilinguals have complete, fully systematic grammatical competence, and that the language practices of a bilingual necessarily differ from those of a monolingual. Projects at the Second Language Acquisition Laboratory therefore use bilingual norms, rather than monolingual norms as the standard to which bilingual students should be held. Bilingual models of assessment are therefore necessary so that students can draw from the full range of their language abilities. Under the direction of Professor Martohardjono, linguists and native language specialists at the Second Language Acquisition Laboratory have developed listening comprehension, reading comprehension, and math assessments in over 9 languages, including Arabic, Bangla, Chinese, English, Haitian Creole, Maay-Maay, S’gaw Karen, and Urdu. The latter assessments have been commissioned by the New York City Department of Education and the New York State Education Department for use in public schools. The model for assessment development emphasizes the integration of theoretical linguistic principles, linguistic validity and cultural appropriateness. The computer-adaptive assessments are accessible and useful to both bilingual and monolingual educators on the ground, and are especially beneficial to immigrant students with low native language literacy who have typically been at a disadvantage taking placement exams in English.

The Second Language Acquisition Laboratory (SLAL) at the CUNY Graduate Center is a research and teaching lab studying the linguistic development of second language learners and bilinguals. A variety of projects are currently underway including the Second-Generation Bilinguals Project, the Development of Language and Literacy in Bilingual Students with Low Native-Language Literacy Skills, the Acquisition of Tense and Aspect in Bilingual Children and Adults, and the Development of Syntax and Reading in Bilingual Children. The lab has developed a number of research-based multilingual assessments of literacy and academic skills, sentence comprehension and production, math, and language ability. The latter assessments have been commissioned by the New York City Department of Education and the New York State Education Department for use in public schools. The SLA Lab works collaboratively with the Research Institute for the Study of Language in Urban Society (RISLUS), and provides a diverse range of research opportunities for doctoral, master’s and advanced undergraduate students.

Professor Emerita of Linguistics at the CUNY Graduate Center, Elaine C Klein has focused her research on second language development and, more recently, on studies of and interventions for adolescent newcomers to US schools with special language and literacy needs – in particular Students with Interrupted/Inconsistent Formal Education (SIFE). Dr. Klein’s scholarship appears in two published volumes, along with numerous academic papers and presentations at national and international conferences, especially those that entail the language education of underserved linguistic minorities.
Klein’s presentation describes Bridges to Academic Success, a program in which Dr. Klein has served as Principal Investigator since co-founding in 2011 as an intervention for SIFE that is currently being piloted in middle and secondary schools in New York State with large numbers of this population. Based on research in New York City by Dr. Klein and Dr. Gita Martohardjono in 2005-2009, Bridges targets the skills needed for developing language, literacy and academic content knowledge among SIFE with very limited literacy in their home languages, using a specially-developed SIFE curriculum, a Professional Development component for teachers, and a research initiative that examines Bridges outcomes, all of which will be demonstrated through a video and presentation.

Rebecca Curinga is an Assistant Professor of TESOL in the School of Education at the College of Staten Island. She has worked extensively on research with RISLUS and CASE to understand best practices for language and literacy acquisition among recent immigrants to New York City and greater New York areas. Leigh Garrison-Fletcher is an Associate Professor of Linguistics and ESL in the Department of Education and Language Acquisition at LaGuardia Community College. She received her doctorate from the Graduate Center, and has worked on multiple projects with RISLUS and the SLA lab. Her research focuses on the academic language and literacy acquisition of emergent bilinguals. This presentation includes an overview and outcomes from two cross-sectional studies that highlight the importance of students’ home language in their acquisition of reading skills in English as a new language. The focus is on 72 Spanish-speaking adolescent newcomers in one New York City high school.

Lisa Auslander leads the work of the curriculum and professional development teams and the daily management of team operations and team development at Bridges of Academic Success at the Center for Advanced Study in Education. She is a former teacher, coach and administrator who has worked in NYC schools and at the district level for over 15 years. She served a range of emergent bilingual students in an inclusion setting in the middle and high school levels in New York City schools. From there she moved on to support teachers in literacy practices and teacher teams in curriculum planning and the collaborative inquiry process as well as principals in strategic planning in the role of district administrator. She received her PhD in Urban Education at the CUNY Graduate Center with her dissertation around culturally and linguistically responsive instruction in an RtI framework, specifically focusing on teacher practice with emergent bilinguals in the secondary classroom.

Dr. Isabelle Barrière’s research investigates the early language development of monolingual and bilingual children exposed to different signed and spoken languages. Her projects have been funded by regional (NYS Board of Education) and national grants (ESRC/UK and NSF/USA) and published in psychology and linguistic journals. In addition to her positions as Associate Professor at Long Island University/Brooklyn and member of the Doctoral faculty of the Graduate Center/CUNY, Dr. Barrière is Director of Research for Policy and Education at Yeled V’Yalda Early Childhood Center- one the largest Head Start programs in NYC that serves more than 2,000 children who speak 15 distinct Languages Other than English at home. The project ‘The roles of families and preschools in the development of young bilinguals’ receptive language skills’ investigates sentence comprehension (that predicts subsequent language and literacy skills) by young Dual Language Learners who are acquiring languages with different properties and represent important linguistic communities in NYC, including Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Russian and Spanish. The implications of the results for the optimal environments for Dual Language Learners will be discussed.

Colette Daiute is Professor of Psychology in the Ph.D. Programs in Psychology/Developmental Psychology; Educational Psychology; Urban Education, and the MA Program in Childhood and Youth Studies. Before joining the Graduate Center faculty, Colette Daiute was a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Dr. Daiute does research on children’s and adults’ uses of symbol systems, primarily language, narrative, and digital tools to mediate their interactions in challenging and rapidly changing life circumstances. From this perspective, language is not only a skill for communication or identity but is a cultural tool for making sense of what is going in the world, how one fits, and what should be changes. Colette Daiute’s recent book publications include Narrative inquiry: A dynamic approach (2014, Sage Publications); Human Development and Political Violence (2010, Cambridge University Press); her recently scholarly journal publications include “Narrating to manage participation and power relations in an education reform program” (Language and Communication, 2015) and “A relational approach to human development research and practice in 21st century violence and displacement” (Human Development, forthcoming). Colette Daiute, with co-author and recent Graduate Center Ph.D., Philip Kreniske, will present research addressing the question “How do multi-lingual college narrate the college experience differently from their monolingual peers?” Over 500 narratives by students across CUNY community colleges indicate different values of education in American society.