Thursday Morning workshops

ACTFL's Advocacy Center: Promote Your Program, Lift Your Voice

Presenters: Kathy Shelton, Beckie Bray Rankin

Let's demystify language advocacy and move into action! In this hands-on workshop, participants will explore ACTFL’s Language Advocacy Resource Center (LARC) and find grassroots tips to shine a spotlight on and grow your local language programs. First, we’ll use the LARC resources to identify and educate your sphere of influence, to celebrate achievements, to communicate program impact, and to lay a strong foundation for language advocacy. Participants will then apply what they learn to create customized advocacy products and action plans they can immediately use in their own classroom, schools, districts, and communities to build partnerships that support language programs. Don’t isolate: Collaborate!

Investigate & Interact: Going Deeper With Culture

Presenters: Mike Travers, Evan Greenwald

What does it really look like to teach culture as a context for language learning – not just a sidebar or an end-of-chapter note? In this workshop, participants will experience various frameworks to approach culture in the world language classroom, all of which will allow them to map cultural products, practices and perspectives to the three communicative modes — Interpretive, Interpersonal, and Presentational — all building an intercultural communicative competence arc that is designed for all levels, Novice to Advanced. Participants will leave with completed, classroom-ready lessons and a quick-reference guide for cultural frameworks.

Linguistic Diversity in the Heritage Classroom

Presenter: María Quintanilla

Heritage Language Learners' linguistic, social, and emotional learning paths are unique to each learner. A Heritage Language classroom affirms their identities, multilingualism, and cultural practices. Together, presenter and participants will explore approaches for centering learning varieties, cultures, and histories of our heritage language-speaking learners. Participants will leave with effective teaching strategies, proven in the classroom, for empowering identity, linguistic plurality, and cultural perspectives.

Voices in Motion: Reimagining the Classroom for Authentic Connection

Presenter: Darcy Rogers

Language learning is ultimately about people, relationships, and meaningful communication. Grounded in years of classroom practice, this immersive workshop invites educators to experience instruction from the learner's perspective while exploring the intentional teaching moves that cultivate belonging, engagement, literacy, and proficiency. Through demonstrations, collaborative inquiry, reflection, and classroom application, participants will experience research-informed practices that model the very principles being explored. Educators will leave with adaptable routines and renewed confidence to create classrooms where every learner has opportunities to communicate, take risks, and grow while empowering them to use their voices in an increasingly interconnected world.

Friday Morning Workshops

Explorando un currículo arraigado en las culturas africanas e indígenas

Presenters: Rhashida Hilliard, Francisco Becerra-Hernández

As the global community engages in the UN’s Second International Decade for People of African Descent (2025-2034) and the International Decade of Indigenous Languages (2022-2032), this session explores the roots of Spanish language and culture through their African and indigenous connections. Presenters will share practical strategies for incorporating these connections into 6-12th grade Spanish classes, proposing lessons that highlight the rich legacies of Afro-descendant and indigenous practices, products, and perspectives in countries like Colombia, Mexico, and Puerto Rico. Finally, participants will collaborate to create their own custom activities to elevate these diverse voices for future generations. This session will be conducted primarily in Spanish.

Guiding Students through the Intermediate Levels

Presenter: Leslie Grahn

With Seal of Biliteracy benchmarks at Intermediate Mid and Intermediate High, how can we intentionally design learning experiences that prepare students to meet those goals? In this interactive workshop, participants will deepen their understanding of the intermediate proficiency sublevels by analyzing student performances and products to identify evidence of proficiency. They will examine learning targets, communicative tasks, and performance assessments for rigor and alignment with proficiency expectations, then revise them to better support students' growth toward intermediate-level performance. They will also design lesson segments that intentionally develop the language skills and communicative functions that distinguish learners at the intermediate proficiency levels.

Humanizing Language Classrooms in the Age of AI: Authentic Engagement

Presenters: María Datel, Abigail Cleary

As generative AI reshapes language education, many teachers are asking how to preserve authentic language learning and hold students accountable without relying on screen monitoring and plagiarism software or punitive policies. This interactive workshop offers a human-centered framework for the language classroom that fosters meaningful engagement, inclusive participation, and authentic communication. Participants will explore practical strategies grounded in Universal Design for Learning (UDL), equitable assessment, community-building, and the intentional inclusion of diverse linguistic and cultural perspectives. They will leave with adaptable tools for designing learning experiences that value students participation, interaction, and growth—as much as what they produce.

Make it Make Sense: Comprehensible Input for All

Presenter: Zach Neumann

Consider this a crash course in comprehensible input (CI) and teaching in the target language! Participants will experience CI from a student perspective, engage in conversation with colleagues, reflect on their own practice, and explore how to incorporate more target language in their own classrooms. There will be time to discuss the role of grammar instruction, novice learners, and answer questions. Time will also be given for planning mini-lessons to showcase to workshop participants and receive feedback in a safe space. Come explore how to easily increase the amount of target language used in class while increasing proficiency for ALL students.