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NYSED-ACTFL Virtual Learning Workshops

The Office of Bilingual Education and World Languages (OBEWL) at the New York State Education Department (NYSED) is proud to present a series of Virtual Learning Workshops for World Language Educators aligned to the proposed revisions to the NYS Languages Other Than English Standards. These workshops for NYS educators created by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) were originally offered as in-person events from January-March of 2020. About half of these events had to be cancelled due to the COVID-19 Pandemic. In response to this, OBEWL commissioned ACTFL to create online versions of these workshops that could be accessed by all World Language educators and administrators from schools within our state.

The three Virtual Learning Workshops are:

1. Focusing Learning through Standards and Can-Do Statements;

2. Developing Proficiency through High-Leverage Teaching Practices; and

3. Designing Effective Units of Instruction.

Each Virtual Learning Workshop consists of a processing guide, videos, presentation slides, activities, supporting documents, and a culminating application activity. Registration for Virtual Learning Workshop 1 (Focusing Learning through Standards and Can-Do Statements) is now available through the following link.  The other two Virtual Learning Workshops will be released in late October and November, respectively. Participants can complete one, two, or three workshops in any order they wish once all have been released. Continuing Teacher and Leader Education credits can be earned for each workshop.

Registration process - click here to access the online registration form.

World Language educators and administrators must provide a valid work email from a New York State school, college, or university to register. All schools in our state—public, private, charter, religious and independent—are eligible. Registrants will submit an online registration form, create a free ACTFL.org account*, and submit a self pre-assessment.  Please allow for one week from the time of completing the registration form to receiving the link to access the workshop.  Once a participant is registered for one workshop, they will gain access to all three workshops as they are released without having to fill out additional registration forms.

For more information on these Virtual Learning Workshops, please contact Candace Black at candace.black@nysed.gov or visit our website: http://www.nysed.gov/world-languages/professional-learning.

* To create a free ACTFL account, click on https://www.actfl.org/user/register.  Enter your contact information, including your school email (not your personal email).  This does NOT require you to become a member of ACTFL. All this does is set up a username and password for you to use in order to log into ACTFL’s learning management system to access the content.  Once your username and password are created, you will receive a confirmation email and will use these credentials to login into the workshop.