• Home
    • Annual Voices Journal Submission Guidelines
  • Annual Voices Journal 2025
    • Journal 2025 Picture Word Indicative Model (PWIM)
    • Journal 2025 Creating ESL Bilingual Units
    • Journal 2025 Creating Lessons for All through Picture Books
    • Journal 2025 Faculty Resources for ML Student Success
    • Journal 2025 Fostering Inclusive Environments
  • 2025 Spring Weekly Voices
    • Teaching Newcomers? Effective Writing Strategies for ELL Newcomers
    • Proposed Changes of HS Requirements for Districts and Students
    • Congratulations to April’s NJTESOL/NJBE Member of the Month: Daryl Perkins
    • Preserving Family Culture and Language: A Parent Workshop in Irvington’s Early Childhood Department
    • Trauma Informed Considerations and Strategies for Multilingual Learners
    • Addressing Student Trauma, Anxiety, and Depression
    • Free Resources to Explore and Use ChatGPT and AI
  • 2025 Winter Weekly Voices
    • Professional Development Opportunities in 2025
    • NJTESOL/NJBE Scholarships and Awards for your students and you!
    • Congratulations to January’s NJTESOL/NJBE Member of the Month: Brittany Fuentes
    • English Learners With Disabilities: The Rules Schools Have to Follow
    • 2024 Higher Ed Scholarship Winner’s Essay
    • 2024 Higher Ed Scholarship Winner’s Essay
    • Resources for Educators Pertaining to Immigrant Students, Families, and Preparation for Response
    • How to Identify and Serve English Learners with Disabilities
    • 2024 Raquel Sinai Newcomer Scholarship Winner’s Essay
    • How to Connect With English-Language Newcomers: Teachers Share Their Favorite Lessons
    • Congratulations to March’s NJTESOL/NJBE Member of the Month: Juliana Neno
    • 2024 Pedro J. Rodriguez High School Scholarship Winner’s Essay
    • NJTESOL/NJBE Spring Conference Invited Speakers
  • About Us
    • Mission Statement
    • Executive Board
    • Membership Information
    • The Hotlist
    • W25 January 21

Contact Us by Email

webmaster@njtesol-njbe.org
njtesol-njbe-voicesnjtesol-njbe-voices
  • Home
    • Annual Voices Journal Submission Guidelines
  • Annual Voices Journal 2025
    • Journal 2025 Picture Word Indicative Model (PWIM)
    • Journal 2025 Creating ESL Bilingual Units
    • Journal 2025 Creating Lessons for All through Picture Books
    • Journal 2025 Faculty Resources for ML Student Success
    • Journal 2025 Fostering Inclusive Environments
  • 2025 Spring Weekly Voices
    • Teaching Newcomers? Effective Writing Strategies for ELL Newcomers
    • Proposed Changes of HS Requirements for Districts and Students
    • Congratulations to April’s NJTESOL/NJBE Member of the Month: Daryl Perkins
    • Preserving Family Culture and Language: A Parent Workshop in Irvington’s Early Childhood Department
    • Trauma Informed Considerations and Strategies for Multilingual Learners
    • Addressing Student Trauma, Anxiety, and Depression
    • Free Resources to Explore and Use ChatGPT and AI
  • 2025 Winter Weekly Voices
    • Professional Development Opportunities in 2025
    • NJTESOL/NJBE Scholarships and Awards for your students and you!
    • Congratulations to January’s NJTESOL/NJBE Member of the Month: Brittany Fuentes
    • English Learners With Disabilities: The Rules Schools Have to Follow
    • 2024 Higher Ed Scholarship Winner’s Essay
    • 2024 Higher Ed Scholarship Winner’s Essay
    • Resources for Educators Pertaining to Immigrant Students, Families, and Preparation for Response
    • How to Identify and Serve English Learners with Disabilities
    • 2024 Raquel Sinai Newcomer Scholarship Winner’s Essay
    • How to Connect With English-Language Newcomers: Teachers Share Their Favorite Lessons
    • Congratulations to March’s NJTESOL/NJBE Member of the Month: Juliana Neno
    • 2024 Pedro J. Rodriguez High School Scholarship Winner’s Essay
    • NJTESOL/NJBE Spring Conference Invited Speakers
  • About Us
    • Mission Statement
    • Executive Board
    • Membership Information
    • The Hotlist
    • W25 January 21

Announcing the 2025 Spring Conference Keynote Speakers!

Tuesday – Alisha De Lorenzo

After decades spearheading groundbreaking initiatives in education, Alisha De Lorenzo has emerged as a guiding force in reshaping the way schools cut through the noise, lean into positive disruption, and solve for the disengagement, disconnection, disparities and declining morale plaguing our communities. Alisha has come to believe that the only way we fight overwhelm and burnout is not by lowering our standards or doing less, but rather by unleashing the next level of aliveness in our people.

An acclaimed international speaker, award winning educator and therapist, Alisha has shared her insights with over 250 thousand educators from the US to Africa. Her work has been featured on PBS, NBC and NJ Spotlight News while her influence has earned her recognition from the NJ Department of Education, Monmouth University, community agencies, and government officials. In 2023 she received the prestigious Ernest L. Boyer Outstanding Educator Award from NJASCD.

Alisha’s profound understanding of the human spirit sets the foundation for schools to unlock innovation, differentiation and growth to drive engagement, productivity and high performance. Stepping into the realm of the extraordinary requires all of us to create cultures where people feel seen, heard, and valued, and that is the foundation to the aliveness we all seek.

Wednesday – Dr. Patriann Smith

Dr. Patriann Smith serves as Professor at the University of South Florida. Her research considers how literacy teaching, research, assessment, and policy are influenced by the intersection of race, language and (im)migration. She draws from the Black Englishes and from the Black literacies and languaging of Afro-Caribbean immigrants, other Black immigrants in the United States (i.e., African), and Black American students (i.e., African-American) to propose solutions that advance racial and linguistic justice in literacy. She also explores the Englishes of Black populations in their English-speaking Caribbean locales to make recommendations for advancing literacy teaching across local, national, and international boundaries.

Dr. Smith has proposed solutions such as ‘a transraciolinguistic approach’, ‘raciosemiotic architecture’, and the framework for ‘Black immigrant literacies’ to clarify how literacy can be re-envisioned and taught to all students (e.g., monolingual, bilingual, multilingual students) in classrooms. She has served as Co-PI of the USAID-funded $3.6 million “RISE Caribbean” initiative and is Co-Founder of the Caribbean Educational Research Center (CERC) designed to enhance research-based decision-making in the Caribbean. Dr. Smith’s research is published broadly in various educational journals. She is the author of Black Immigrant Literacies: Intersections of Race, Language, and Culture in the Classroom. Dr. Smith is the incoming Vice-President of the Literacy Research Association (LRA).

Thursday – Missy Testerman

Missy Testerman, the 2024 National Teacher of the Year, is a kindergarten through eighth grade English as a second language (ESL) teacher who is a staunch advocate for her students, their families and her fellow teachers. Testerman served as a first and second grade teacher at Rogersville City School in Tennessee for three decades before taking advantage of the state’s Grow Your Own initiative and adding an ESL endorsement three years ago. She currently works as an ESL specialist at Rogersville City School, where she teaches K-8 students who do not speak English as their first language and supports them in all academic areas.

In her rural Appalachian community, Testerman builds bridges between cultures – families who have been in the area for centuries and newer immigrants – through a curriculum focused on a study of Americans from diverse backgrounds, allowing students to better understand that people are inherently the same and that they all belong.

Missy plans to use her year of service as National Teacher of the Year to empower teachers to advocate for students and fellow educators by using their voices and sharing their experiences with those outside of the classroom. Testerman believes strongly in teachers embracing their role as education experts to inform decision-makers of today’s classroom experiences to meet all students’ needs.

Announcements

2024 Gold Sponsor

NJTESOL/NJBE Professional Development: Teaching Foundational Reading Skills to Multilingual Learners. Tuesday, October 29, at 5:00. This PLC series will explore instructional practices for teaching foundational reading skills to MLs in English, research and current topics in education pertinent to this topic, and an overview of the Science of Reading and what it means for MLs in New Jersey. We have already “sold out”, but the event will be recorded. We now have a waiting list & YouTube notification form for the PLC. Here is the link to the signup form.

We are so excited to inform you that the next Morris/Sussex Chapter meeting will be on Tuesday, November 12th at 4:15 online. Our fabulous WIDA rep, Maggie Churchill, will be presenting. Register here.

Nominate the member of the month!
NJTESOL/NJBE has so many amazing teachers throughout our state that it would be fitting to highlight some of them. Nominees could be colleagues who are available to answer questions about ELLs or the Bilingual Education code; educators who support students and their families beyond the classroom with projects, college applications, and extracurricular activities; someone who joins committees in support of ELLS or to implement positive change for the community. The nominee must be a member of NJTESOL/NJBE. Nomination Link

T-Shirt Design Contest – All NJTESOL/NJBE members and their students are invited to participate in this first-ever competition. The winning design will be featured on the 2025 Spring Conference t-shirts sold to raise funds for the NJTESOL/NJBE Scholarship Fund. Submissions are due by Nov. 15, 2024. See more information here.

Spring Conference Call For Proposals
Presenters play a key role in our Spring Conference. We invite proposals that will strengthen systems of support for students, their families, educators, support staff, and the communities in which we work and live. Proposals may focus on any educational level, from Pre-Kindergarten to university, as well as on adult school and workplace literacy settings. Proposals can be submitted for an in-person presentation, a pre-recorded presentation for the Video Library, or a combination of both. You can submit your proposal here. The deadline is Nov. 17, 2024.

3 Ways to Ensure English Learners Benefit from the Science of Reading
and
Supporting Multilingual Learners in Developing Reading Fluency across the School Day

ARTICLES:

Meet Our New Executive Board Members

Science of Reading Podcast 3:
Diagnosing Dyslexia in Multilingual Learners
– with Francisco Usero-González
and
Science of Reading Podcast 4:
Practical Strategies for Multilingual Learning
– with Diane August, Ph.D.

Communication is KEY!
and
Anti-Immigrant Rhetoric Has Consequences. What Schools Can Do to Help

Congratulations to October’s
NJTESOL/NJBE Member of the Month Kellie Cuccaro

and
Every Teacher Is a Language Teacher: Strategies for Supporting Multilingual Learners of English in the Mainstream Classroom– Naashia Mohamed

3 Ways to Ensure English Learners Benefit from the Science of Reading
-Leslie Villegas
and
Supporting Multilingual Learners in Developing Reading Fluency across the School Day– Kate Kinsella

Announcing the 2025 Spring Conference Keynote Speakers!

Congratulations to November’s
NJTESOL/NJBE Member of the Month Mrs. Singh

and
4 Ways to Support Long-Term English Learners – Sarah Said

Word Analyzer Vocabulary Tool
and
Online Dictionaries

Notebook LM
-Jessica Duran
and
5 Ways to Use AI-Generated Images in Your Classroom -Brent Warner

Inspirational Quotations
and
A Chorus of Reasons Why We Teach

Invitation to Write an Article for the Yearly Voices Journal
and
Padres con Poder/Parent Power Parent Expo

5 Ways to Bring Cultural Diversity into Your Classroom -Carol Higho
and
Defying Labels at Tables -Joyce Farr

Season’s Greetings from the NJTESOL/NJBE Executive Board

NJTESOL/NJBE Voices Editorial Board

Executive Director
Kathleen Fernandez

President
LeighAnn Matthews, Bridgewater-Raritan Public Schools

Past-President
Michelle Land, Randolph Township Schools

Layout
Dale Egan, Bergen Community College

Technology
Marilyn Pongracz, Bergen Community College

NJTESOL/NJBE Home Page

Visit the home page, NJTESOL/NJBE
for
Advocacy
Spring Conference Information
Chapter Meetings
Discussion List Information
Membership
Helpful Links

Affiliated With

NJTESOL/NJBE Voices