This week, several of our VATESOL board members attended the annual Virginia ESL Supervisors’ Association (VESA) conference in Norfolk. We hosted an information table where we registered new members and encouraged presentation proposals for SETESOL 2020. Conferences are a great opportunity to meet and reconnect with professionals in our field, and we were grateful to see so many familiar faces!

VATESOL President Rebecca Raab connected with one of our members, WendySue Clausson, an ESL teacher at Cooke Elementary School in Virginia Beach. Check out their conversation and join us in congratulating WendySue on her exciting news!

In Japan every January the Grand Sumo Tournament is held. This year's event concluded January 26th with quite the historic underdog story! Wrestler Tokushoryu is the first bottom-ranked sumo wrestler to win a top-division title since March 2000. WOW!

I was quite excited to be gifted Sumo Joe by Mia WenJen to review for the Multicultural Children’s Book Day 2020 event. The easy-to-read book highlights the sport with a clever character face-off: a brother vs. sister martial arts challenge.  One of my newcomer LOVES, I mean is honestly infatuated with Japanese culture, and the illustrations by Nat Iwata allow so many opportunities for learning also.   Sumo Joe would be a perfect choice as part of a quad text set leading up to a target text on martial arts or Japan.  The  rhythmic text structure appeals to new and intermediate readers  along with building vocabulary outside the martial arts theme.  As if that wasn't enough, the illustrated glossary and author's note adds to the uniqueness of Sumo Joe.  Find a quick flip-through of Sumo Joe by clicking the cover image above!

 MCDB 2020 is in its 7^th year! This non-profit children’s literacy initiative was founded by Valarie Budayr and Mia Wenjen; two diverse book-loving moms who saw a need to shine the spotlight on all of the multicultural books and authors on the market while also working to get those book into the hands of young readers and educators.  

Seven years in, MCBD’s mission is to raise awareness of the ongoing need to include kids’ books that celebrate diversity in homes and school bookshelves continues.

MCBD 2020  is honored to have the following Medallion Sponsors on board

Super Platinum

Make A Way Media/ Deirdre “DeeDee” Cummings

Platinum

Language Lizard, Pack-N-Go Girls

Gold

Audrey Press, Lerner Publishing Group, KidLit TV, ABDO BOOKS : A Family of Educational Publishers, PragmaticMom & Sumo Jo, Candlewick Press

Silver

 Author Charlotte Riggle, Capstone Publishing, Guba Publishing, Melissa Munro Boyd & B is for Breathe

Bronze

Author Carole P. Roman, Snowflake Stories/Jill Barletti, Vivian Kirkfield & Making Their Voices Heard. Barnes Brothers Books,  TimTimTom, Wisdom Tales Press, Lee & Low Books,  Charlesbridge Publishing, Barefoot BooksTalegari Tales

Author Sponsors, including recent ALA Award winning author Jerry Craft AND creator of MCBD 2020 Official Poster.

MCBD would like to also give a shout-out to their CoHost Team who not only hosts the book review link-up on celebration day, but who also works tirelessly to spread the word of this event. View MCBD CoHosts HERE.

Happy New Year, VATESOL!

As we continue to ring in 2020 together, we are launching VATESOL Together, a brand new platform for sharing information, resources, strategies... and maybe a few surprises with our favorite English language practitioners ⎯ YOU! The 21st-century is moving us further away from the traditional newsletter outlet. The VATESOL Together blog will provide more concise, frequent, and timely updates related to our field throughout the year.

Whether you’ve been a member of VATESOL for 20 years or are learning about us for the first time, we are excited for this fresh new start. And what better way to celebrate a new year than with sharing our New Year’s Resolutions?

Each of our current VATESOL board members uploaded a quick video introduction using an awesome ed-tech resource called Flipgrid. By sharing an easy-to-remember link, we could each record, edit, and upload our videos from any device in any location with no hassle. Then, we compiled our videos into a Flipgrid MixTape to share it with you in just one file. 

Flipgrid is an excellent resource for multilingual classrooms. Students can practice speaking skills in their own videos and collaborate with peers by responding to other videos. Click here to learn more about using Flipgrid as an educational resource in your classroom!

It’s time to meet your current VATESOL board! Then, comment below and share your New Year’s Resolution with us!

Check in regularly with our social media pages and website for future posts. We look forward to collaborating with you in this exciting decade!

If you are interested in writing for VATESOL Together, please email vatesolblog@gmail.com