A Tribe of Language Teachers Gathered in Minnesota

Nordic language teachers gathered in Minnesota for professional development and networking. 

  • Teachers in the field of English as a Second Language gathered in Bloomington, MN for the MELED conference. (L-R) Valorie Arrowsmith (Swedish), Martha Mason (Norwegian), Krista Schweppe (Norwegian) and Sarah Hansen (Norwegian) took time out for a group photo. Several other recruits for the picture got detained and missed the photo, however there could easily have been people representing Finnish, more Swedish and Norwegian, and even Old Icelandic.

  • Bloomington, Minnesota — During the fall, the Minnesota Department of Education and MNTESOL (Minnesota Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) joined forces to offer a combined conference for nearly one thousand teachers called MELED, or Minnesota English Learner Education. Each group has previously hosted an annual conference in the spring or fall, attracting many of the same participants to both. The collaboration meant the professional development opportunities could be expanded to an extra day.

  • Thinking about forming a new group (The Minnesota Teachers of Nordic Languages to Speakers of Other Languages?) are educators who attended a fall conference focused on teaching English to speakers of other languages: (L-R) Martha Mason, Norwegian; Kristie Herman Hill, Swedish through marriage; Krista Schweppe, Norwegian; Katherine Heinze, Old Icelandic; Jackie Smith, Swedish; Josie Smith, Swedish through the American Swedish Institute Lucia Choir; and Valorie Arrowsmith, Swedish.

  • One keynote address featured Dr. Elaine Tarone, from the University of Minnesota. Tarone is the director of the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA). She presented an overview of the language history of Minnesota spanning from Dakota and Ogibwe to today’s population of Somali-, Karen- and Hmong-speaking immigrants. In keeping with her focus, which included acknowledgement of the many speakers of Scandinavian languages in the state’s history, a group of Nordic language speakers met for a photo to commemorate the event. In some cases these conference attendees teach Norwegian or Swedish, but in all cases they are involved in the field of English as a Second Language as teachers, coaches, researchers or teacher trainers.
    By Valorie Arrowsmith

  • For more information about MNTESOL visit http://minnetesol.org/