Department of Educator and Leadership Preparation

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 Univesity-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.