Description
Welcome to the Office of English Language Acquisition Services (OELAS) Conference — Aiming for the Stars-Arizona 2008.

The conference will begin at 8:00AM on Tuesday, December 9 and conclude after lunch at 1:00PM on Thursday, December 11, 2008. Registration will be offered on Monday evening from 5:00PM-6:30PM and on Tuesday starting at 7:00AM. Information Desks will be available throughout the conference.

A continued focus of our 2008 Office of English Language Acquisition Services (OELAS) conference will be the acquisition of the skills and information needed to successfully implement the Structured English Immersion (SEI) Program Models. The four-hour per day English Language Development (ELD) requirement will be addressed and strategies offered to guide you through the listening, speaking, reading, writing, vocabulary and grammar components for different ELL proficiency levels. In addition, we will showcase best practices and success stories from throughout Arizona.

Tuesday, December 9 will kick off with a half-day OELAS ‘Boot Camp’, a plenary session which will offer an overview and update on the implementation of the SEI models for all attendees. This will be presented in two sections. One section is introductory and will cater to the ELL educator who is either new to the State or new to ELL education. The other section will be for the ‘advanced’ ELL educator and will focus more on updates and details of topics already familiar to the group. Topics will include the SEI Budget, Alternate Models, ILLP, English Language Development, the Discrete Skills Inventory, Teacher’s Guide, related classroom strategies and skills as well as legal and historical background information on the SEI Program Models. The Advanced Section will also include information on Gifted and Advanced Placement.