Greetings from PEARLL!

...where we have had our busiest summer ever! Six summer institutes facilitated by renowned trainers and practicing classroom teachers, plus our second biennial Virtual Summit in late June. This summer we also hosted our first Educator in Residence, who will share some words on her experience below. 

We also have some great news for the future of PEARLL: We recently learned that PEARLL has been awarded a second four-year grant as a Title VI Language Resource Center (LRC), funded by the US Department of Education. PEARLL was originally funded in 2018 as one of 16 LRCs around the country, each with its own area of focus. PEARLL’s focus for the next few years will continue to be supporting teacher effectiveness for language learning at all levels. You can read about our big goals for this new grant cycle here. We are thrilled to continue our work with language instructors and supervisors, and to be part of the LRC community. 

As the summer winds down and the school year gears up, we hope your summer has been what you needed—whether a summer full of learning, a summer full of resting, or a nice mix. Read on for more about our summer of learning! 

Rebecca Damari & Thomas Sauer
PEARLL Co-Directors

The Summit "Continues"

Building on the success of our 2020 Virtual Summit, this year’s event featured live, interactive presentations by featured speakers Heather Sweetser and Florencia Henshaw; live podcast recordings from We Teach Languages, Language Lounge, and World Language Classroom; and two days of presentations from classroom educators, researchers, and experts in the field. 

Over 800 educators from 49 states and representing 36 countries participated in this year's summit. With over 75% of summit participants reporting that the summit gave them ideas for concrete changes to make to their teaching, we are excited to announce that all recordings from the Virtual Summit will remain online and free. Take a look—or another look—and find videos that meet some of your current professional needs.

Successful Summer Institute Series

This summer marked our third year of offering summer professional learning that takes place 100% online. This year's series focused on the new TELL Learner Pathways and was facilitated by experienced classroom teachers under the guidance of PEARLL Lead Consultant, Laura Terrill. 98% of 2022 summer institute participants say they would recommend a PEARLL institute to a colleague and we are finalizing plans to offer a fall series of online institutes.

STARTALK 

The PEARLL team is excited to share that we are planning a new intensive professional learning experience for 20 teachers of Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Persian, and Russian. Funded through STARTALK, a project of the National Security Agency, the program includes an intensive one-week residential camp supported by 60 hours of pre-camp and post-camp learning experiences. During the camp scheduled to take place June 2023 on the campus of the University of Maryland, participants will work collaboratively to create lessons aligned with the STARTALK Principles before delivering those lessons to peers and student groups. We will announce a series of information sessions next month. 

Reflections from PEARLL’s Educator in Residence 

French teacher Beckie Rankin (Lexington High School, MA) spent her summer working with PEARLL as the first Educator in Residence, and she tells you all about it in her first blog post. In the next few months we will start looking for our Educator in Residence for the summer of 2023, so watch this space if you are interested in spending part of your summer with us next year. 

When we think of the word “residency”, those of us with loved ones in the medical field immediately conjure up images of exhausted young doctors focused intensely on learning, with the work-life balance of a first-year teacher. Another residency type is that of an artist at a museum: someone with specific skills who is there for a short period of time to produce art and promote their mission. I love this style of residency because it is grounded in high expectations and yet somehow offers breathing room for growth and inspiration. This also describes PEARLL’s new Educator in Residence program. Rather than relying on PEARLL staff to develop classroom-oriented materials, they asked someone (me) with specific skills (world language teacher) for a short period of time (100 hours) to produce (content) and promote (the TELL Framework). And for this, I am glad, because there was no way I was sacrificing my summer relaxation for anything less!