Bilingual and ESL Education

Congratulations on the SAISD Bilingual Cohort, the class of 2020

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The bilingual program at Texas A&M University-San Antonio initiates the first bilingual education cohort with the San Antonio Independent School District this Fall 2018. Now, it is time to celebrate their success in 2020. Years of dedication, countless hours of studying, endless nights spent putting together projects and presentations, and the day is finally here. This is when all of that preparation will pay off. This is when the future begins. Congratulations on the SAISD Bilingual cohort, the class of 2020!

National Association of Bilingual Education - SLOW Session 2020 Invited Speakers

The bilingual program faculty, Drs. Esther Garza, Myriam Jimena Guerra, and Hsiao-ping Wu, were invited to present at the National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE). NABE is a non-profit organization that works to advocate for educational equality and excellence for bilingual and multilingual students locally and globally since 1975. The invited speaker series were live sessions for NABE’s national membership that included outstanding scholars in the field of bilingual education such as Stephen Krashen, professor emeritus at the University of Southern California, Alma Flor Ada, Professor Emerita at the University of San Francisco, and other scholars’ working to promote bilingual education. The bilingual faculty presented their current research in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics (STEAM). The purpose of the presentation focused on promoting awareness in STEAM education as an innovative approach for program design and implementation in Dual Language and Sheltered Instructional contexts.

Jaguar Scholars

The Bilingual and ESL Program would like to highlight the ‘Jaguar Scholars’, an experiential summer initiative for pre-service teachers seeking expertise to support young Bilingual Learners in the Southwest Independent School District.  During the summer of 2019, through the leadership of Dr. Esther Garza, Dr. Hsiao-Ping Wu and Dr. Myriam Guerra with SWISD administrators and teachers, the bilingual program was honored to serve over a hundred bilingual students in grades PreK-1st during their summer enrichment camp. The Jaguar Scholars, which consisted of bilingual and ESL pre-service teachers were placed in classrooms with expert and experienced mentor teachers and provided experiences such as assisting in planning linguistically accommodated instruction and opportunities to observe and teach using bilingual and ESL strategies. To provide further support for our young bilingual learners, the Jaguar Scholars also received bilingual/ESL manipulatives and materials to implement their university coursework learning in bilingual and ESL education. The project also provided an authentic field-based experience for pre-service teachers seeking expertise and experience to support their interest in completing Bilingual or English as a Second Language(ESL) certification.

  San Antonio Area Association of Bilingual Education (SAAABE) Conference – Spring 2020 Faculty and Bilingual Education of Student Organization (BESO) members

Invited Speaker, Xavier Garar for Bilingual Education of Student Organization Banquet

Xavier Garza was born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley. He is a prolific author, artist, and storyteller whose work focuses primarily on his experiences growing up in the small border town of Rio Grande City. Mr. Garza has exhibited his art and performed his stories in venues throughout Texas, Arizona and the state of Washington. He is the author of the following popular authentic children’s books:  Lucha Libre: The Man in the Silver Mask, Charro Claus & the Tejas Kid: The Story of Santa’s Primo and his Little Sidekick and Creepy Creatures and Other Cucuys. In December of 2019, he was invited as a guest speaker at our bi-annual Bilingual Education of Student Organization (BESO) student banquet.  Garza inspired our bilingual teacher graduates to believe in themselves and motivated them and their families to pursue all their dreams, just as he has accomplished in his own work. Finally, he encouraged our graduates and their families to promote the inclusion of culturally relevant and bilingual books for their future students, families and communities.

San Antonio Independent School District (SAISD) Bilingual Cohort 2018-2019

The bilingual program at Texas A&M University- San Antonio initiates the first bilingual education cohort with the San Antonio Independent School District this Fall 2018. The teachers participating in this program are serving bilingual programs and other content areas with a shared goal to focus on research in the field of bilingualism and dual language education to address the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse populations.  Each student in the cohort can be seen as the teacher and learner. All teachers actively participate in discussions and bring their practical experiences to the group. Cohort graduate students will also have the opportunity to establish the professional relationships that leads to leadership beyond the classroom.

Professional development workshops for educators and administrators from Mexico

The professors in the program of bilingual/ESL were invited by Dr. Kathryn Robinson, Coordinator of International Programs from The Alamo Colleges District to present to a group of educators and administrators from the state of Aguas Calientes, Mexico.  Dr. Myriam Jimena Guerra, Dr. Esther Garza and Dr. Hsiao-ping Wu specially designed a series of three professional development workshops at Texas A&M University-San Antonio targeting the areas of technology supported content based learning, language learning strategies and culturally relevant practices for developing a dual language framework to implement into Mexican public schools.  The workshops where offered in July and also provided our Jaguar future teachers experiential learning through this collaboration.  This partnership allowed our jaguar students to share and showcase their teaching and instructional strategies for dual language learners and in return, the Mexican educators provided critical insight in regards to the Mexican schooling experiences. The bilingual program will continue expanding international partnerships programs.

San Antonio Area Association of Bilingual Education (SAAABE) Conference

Bilingual/ESL program faculty and students presented at the annual San Antonio Area Association of Bilingual Education (SAAABE) conference. During the conference, the bilingual education student association (B.E.S.O) members served as volunteers. Dr. Hsiao-ping Wu, assistant professor, presented during a workshop for teachers seeking to assist English language learners to develop academic vocabulary. Dr. Myriam Guerra, assistant professor, presented literacy research between home and school literacy, as well as a workshop for teachers who can implement culturally-relevant children literature in the classroom.  

Professional development workshops for language educators from Mexico

Bilingual/ESL Program faculty members Myriam Jimena Guerra, Ph.D. and Hsiao-ping Wu, Ph.D. hosted two professional development workshops for 25 English pre-K-12 teachers and professors from Aguas Calientes, Mexico. This event was the result of a University partnership with Dr. Kathryn Robinson, coordinator of International Programs for The Alamo Community College.

Dr. Wu's presentation included the topics of cultural awareness, sensitivity, adaption and native-non-native fallacy on Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Dr. Guerra's presentation addressed the importance of teaching English as a foreign language as a requirement for global competitiveness, understanding the difference between everyday language and academic language and how to use the best teaching strategies for developing students' linguistic domains.