Keynote Speakers

Friday Keynote Address

• Stephen Krashen

Saturday Keynote Address

• Martina Bex -  You can make a difference: The impact of teaching culture in the target language 

Pre-Conference Workshop - Sponsored by LiM Northwest

Thursday 9 a.m - 4 p.m. 

• Stephen Krashen and Karen Rowan  

The pre-conference workshop will cover the basics of Dr. Krashen's Comprehension Hypothesis (or how to be the most knowledgable person in your building on the science of second language acquisition).  You will learn strategies for Total Physical Response, pre-teaching vocabulary, TPR Storytelling, personalizing the input, using actors, and teaching reading for comprehension. Each participant leaves with a huge shot in the arm of motivation and inspiration as well as armed with the knowledge to confidently teach with comprehensible input.  Karen will continue the following day with sessions that expand upon the pre-conference info and are appropriate follow up for attendees and for anyone already experienced in TPRS. 

Post-Conference Workshops 

Saturday  2p.m. - 5 p.m.

Martina Bex -#authres: so easy a novice could do it

In this workshop, participants will explore how language learners can experience the excitement and enrichment of authentic resources without feeling overwhelmed or incompetent. Participants will learn five scaffolding strategies that transform authentic resources into comprehensible input for their students, and they will use those strategies to develop five ready-to-use, Common Core aligned lessons that are centered on authentic resources. 

Carol Gaab  Movie Talk Magic

Many teachers have discovered the power of Movie Talk in short bursts, but how can teachers sustain the magic over the course of time? In this interactive session you will learn MovieTalk basics, along with some unique strategies to keep the approach fresh, inspire HOT and extend the process in multiple ways to maximize SLA. 

Keynote presenter biographies:

Stephen Krashen is best known for developing the first comprehensive theory of second language acquisition. He has also contributed to the areas of language teaching, bilingual education and literacy.

He was the 1977 Incline Bench Press champion of Venice Beach, California. Please follow him on twitter (skrashen) so he can achieve his goal of catching up to Justin Bieber.  

He holds a PhD in Linguistics from UCLA, as well as an honoraryDoctor of Humane Letters, awarded by Lewis and Clark College, Portland. He was elected a member of the Reading Hall of Fame in 2005.

Karen Rowan has been a teacher trainer in Comprehension Based Methods, including TPR Storytelling since 1996.  She taught middle school, high school and community college Spanish for 11 years. She now teaches Spanish to adults through Fluency Fast Language Classes.

She is the author of the TPRS ancillaries for Paso a paso and Realidades and the author of the Isabela series of readers in Spanish, French, English and Latin (The Adventures of Isabela, Isabela Captures a Monkey and Carl Doesn't Want to Go to Mexico) and Don Quijote, el ultimo caballero. Karen has also been the editor of The International Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, http://www.ijflt.org for 11 years.  She specializes in basic TPR and TPRS training and coaching; personalization and reading strategies.

Our team (Stephen Krashen, Jason Fritze, Linda Li and Karen Rowan) has trained teachers and taught adult language classes to thousands of adults in Colorado, California, Tennessee, Texas, Minnesota and Istanbul, Turkey, balancing theory and practice at all levels of language instruction.

Martina Bexis a Spanish teacher with a passion for curriculum development, in particular, exploring cultural topics using high-frequency vocabulary. In addition to presenting at state and national conferences, Martina has worked with several publishing companies to develop cultural, comprehensible materials for Spanish teachers and with school districts as an instructional and curriculum consultant. She taught for two years at Syracuse University and four years at a public middle school in Anchorage before making the decision to stay home with her own children full-time. While her kids are sleeping, she sneaks away to post CI-based lesson plans, activities, and strategies on her blog, “The Comprehensible Classroom” (www.martinabex.com).

Carol Gaab has been providing teacher training in TPRS and CI-based strategies for (inter)national schools and universities since 1996. A frequent presenter at ACTFL, iFLT and many other state, regional and international conferences, Carol was also a presenter for the Bureau of Education and Research for 9 years. In addition to organizing and directing the Multi-cultural and iFLT Conferences, Carol has been teaching ESL and Spanish for various Major League Baseball clubs since 1990, most notably twenty years teaching for and directing the San Francisco Giant’s U.S. and Dominican Programs.  The President of TPRS Publishing, Inc. and the founder/president of Fluency Matters, Carol has authored and published numerous graded readers and curricula for novice to advanced students.