FOREIGN PRESENTER: KITTY JOHNSON

Kitty Johnson is the U.S State Department´s Regional English Language Officer (RELO) for Mexico and Central America.Previously, she was RELO in Lima, Peru and has been a former teacher trainer in  the Soviet Union, Europe, Asia, and the U.S. She holds and MA TESOL from California State University, LA. Kitty has already been to Honduras in teacher-training events. Welcome to Honduras again, Kitty!  We appreciate your commitment and enthusiasm for contributing to the betterment of English Language Teaching in Central America. 

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"Teaching English in a Multicultural Environment"

 This year the conference´s theme embodies one of the most recent trends in language pedagogy and education in general, multiculturalism. Multicultural education has  become an important part of second and/or foreign  language teaching due to the undeniable recognition that people from different cultural and ethnic backgrounds  provide a unique opportunity for cultural enrichment and diversity in the language classrooms therefore, rather than ignore students´ cultural and linguistic  traits, language teachers must integrate them into their teaching practice to facilitate learning. In Honduras,  bilingual education  (whether oriented to  the learning of a foreign or indigenous language)  should embrace these new approaches that recognize culturally and linguistically diverse students such as Miskitos, Garifunas, Lencas, Tawahkas, Chorties, Creole, or Tolupanes, who have been somehow underrepresented   in education. Nowadays, educational policies such as EIB (Intercultural Bilingual Education) and CNB (Basic National Curriculum) recognize the need to reform education towards more democratic and inclusive instructional practices. As a result, Honduran English language teachers must become familiar with new methods, approaches, techniques,  strategies and tools to lessen such differences and accomodate instruction by promoting equality,  respect, tolerance, and a social and cultural dialogue that foster authentic learning for everybody, regardless of ethnicity, religion, or social class.  This conference will address different issues and topics related to multicultural and bilingual education with the purpose of developing English language teachers´professional skills and competencies in order to enhance quality of education in Honduras. 

Welcome to our conference!

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