Friday, May 15, 2026
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The Power of Words: Unlocking Academic Language for Student Success
Featured SessionsDr. ET Lead
May 15, 9:40am – 10:50am70 minOak (Level: 2nd Floor, Cap 45)Show details
Explore simple, effective strategies to build academic language through structured talk, modeling, and student discourse. Walk away with ready-to-use tools to boost student voice, confidence, and success—perfect for strengthening TELPAS reading and writing. -
EP
Math Talk Matters: Building Content & Language Together Through CBLI
Instructional Practices in ESL ClassroomsEduardo Perez Lead
May 15, 9:40am – 10:50am70 minRiverwalk (Level: Ground Floor, Cap 40)Show details
Math Talk Matters: Building Content & Language Together through CBLI explores how intentional math discourse can simultaneously develop conceptual understanding and academic language in bilingual, dual language, and ESL classrooms. Grounded in the CBLI framework, this session highlights explicit instruction, structured discussion routines, visual scaffolds, and sentence rehearsal as tools to bridge content and language without lowering rigor. Participants will analyze classroom examples and teacher moves that position students as active meaning-makers who justify, question, and build on one another’s thinking. Educators will leave with practical, ready-to-implement strategies that elevate student voice and honor linguistic and cultural assets while strengthening mathematical achievement. -
The Transformative Power of Bilingual and Higher Education
Featured SessionsDr. Jose Luis Zelaya Lead
May 15, 10:55am – 12:05pm70 minMesquite (Level: 2nd Floor, Cap 45)Show details
This session provides an interactive and engaging learning experience focused on the transformative power of bilingualism in the lives of newcomer and emergent bilingual students. Participants will explore how bilingualism strengthens cognitive development, academic success, perseverance, and long-term aspirations, while also serving as a foundation for belonging and empowerment in schools. Together, we will examine common challenges educators face when supporting bilingual learners, including limited instructional time, pressures to accelerate English acquisition, and systems that unintentionally devalue students’ home language. Using a strengths-based and research-informed approach, participants will reflect on how to shift classroom practices toward affirming language, culture, and student voice. Educators will leave with practical strategies and tools that can be implemented strategically, including methods to increase academic discourse, elevate multilingual engagement, and create safe learning environments where students’ native language and cultural assets are embraced as essential resources. This session will inspire participants to reimagine English language acquisition as a powerful pathway to leadership, opportunity, and generational success. -
Where Language and Disability Meet: What Districts Must Do Differently
Featured SessionsLizdelia Piñón Lead
May 15, 10:55am – 12:05pm70 minPine (Level: 2nd Floor, Cap 40)Show details
Where Language and Disability Meet explores how schools can better serve multilingual students with disabilities by rethinking systems that often separate language development from special education. This session challenges deficit-based approaches and highlights how they contribute to misidentification, limited access, and inequitable outcomes for emergent bilingual learners.
Participants will examine how policy, instruction, and collaboration can work together to create more inclusive, asset-based environments that honor students’ linguistic and cultural strengths. The presentation offers practical strategies for equitable identification, bilingual and culturally sustaining instruction, stronger collaboration between multilingual and special education teams, and authentic family partnership.
Grounded in research and real-world district examples, this session empowers educators, leaders, and advocates to move beyond compliance and toward transformative practices. Attendees will leave with concrete tools and a renewed vision for creating classrooms and systems where multilingual students with disabilities are fully included, supported, and positioned to thrive. -
Scaffold Writing Across Mixed Proficiency Levels
Instructional Practices in ESL ClassroomsAbraham Perez Lead
May 15, 10:55am – 11:50am55 minRiverwalk (Level: Ground Floor, Cap 40)Show details
This interactive session models a scaffold progression from vocabulary development to collaborative paragraph writing in mixed proficiency ESL/ELD classrooms. Teachers will explore how to use a visual stimulus to activate background knowledge and generate student created vocabulary, which is then analyzed and grouped by language features such as cognates, verbs, nouns, and synonyms to build metalinguistic awareness. Participants will engage in randomly grouping strategies where students collaboratively construct sentences based on group size, requiring each member to contribute one word, followed by whole class analysis of sentence structure and language targets. The lesson culminates in a roving paragraph activity that transforms oral rehearsal into written production, demonstrating how structured interaction, movement, and student generated anchor charts support academic writing development across proficiency levels. This progression centered approach shifts writing instruction from teacher centered delivery to scaffold, student driven language production. -
Jugando y Aprendiendo: Gamifying SWIRL in HS for Multilingual Success
Instructional Practices in ESL ClassroomsBailee Thompson Lead with Jose Solis, Myra Chavez, Edgar Sifuentes, Shantell Colebrooke
May 15, 1:45pm – 2:40pm55 minRiverwalk (Level: Ground Floor, Cap 40)Show details
Jugando y Aprendiendo: Gamifying SWIRL in HS for Multilingual Success
How do we move beyond passive language learning and create classrooms where Emergent Bilingual students actively engage in academic language across all domains? This highly interactive session showcases how the LEE High School ESOL and ELD team leverages gamification to promote SWIRL (Speaking, Writing, Interaction, Reading, and Listening) in culturally and linguistically responsive ways at the secondary level.
Participants will not just learn about strategies—they will experience them firsthand. Attendees will actively engage in a variety of classroom-tested games that promote academic language development, collaboration, and student discourse across content areas. Through guided play, participants will see how these strategies increase engagement while providing meaningful opportunities for students to practice language in authentic, low-risk environments.
Grounded in research on translanguaging (García & Wei), comprehensible input (Krashen), and Funds of Knowledge (Moll et al.), this session demonstrates how game-based learning supports both language acquisition and academic success while honoring students’ cultural and linguistic assets.
In addition, participants will take part in a “make-and-take” experience, where they will create and leave with ready-to-use game materials and templates that can be immediately implemented in their classrooms. Whether you are new to working with Emergent Bilinguals or looking to elevate student engagement, this session provides practical tools and strategies to transform instruction and empower multilingual learners. -
GS
Rising Together: Elevating Language and Content Through Comprehensible Design
Instructional Practices in ESL ClassroomsGabriela Sandoval Lead with Heather Williams, Ariana Garza, Melissa Olivarez
May 15, 2:55pm – 3:50pm55 minRiverwalk (Level: Ground Floor, Cap 40)Show details
This interactive session highlights how intentional instructional practices in Content-Based Language Instruction (CBLI) empower educators to support emergent bilingual (EB) students in every classroom. Participants will explore how to design comprehensible learning intentions and align them with purposeful success criteria, using targeted EB supports as actionable “SWIRLing moves” that drive both language and content mastery.
Presenters will model how structured conversations, real classroom scenarios, and reflective planning can shift mindsets—helping all educators see themselves as language teachers. Through discussion, modeling, and collaborative practice, participants will engage in creating their own aligned learning intentions, success criteria, and SWIRLing with supports.