This year’s events included a new element: The Mari Haas Prize for Excellence in FLES Teaching. The goal of this prize, which includes a grant of $1000, is to honor and validate strong early language teaching, while also providing financial support for a unique project that will be beneficial to the PreK-8 language teaching community. This year’s winner, Rebecca Aubrey from the Ashford School in Connecticut, was awarded the Prize for her proposal to develop a thematic curriculum unit about Puerto Rico for elementary Spanish students. Entitled “La Tierra Boricua - interdisciplinary curriculum materials for early language learning through the culture of Puerto Rico,” the materials will include STEAM-themes and will be shared with participants in next year’s FLES Fest, as well as at local and national professional conferences.

 

The event was co-sponsored by the Dalton World and Classical Language Department and NNELL – the National Network for Early Language Learning. Dalton teachers Flor Berman, Marissa Coulehan, Carmen Herrera, Kavita Rekhi, and Carlos San Juan helped with logistics during the event. The event was established two years ago by Dr. Lori Langer de Ramirez, Director of the Dalton Language program, in honor of the late Dr. Mari Haas, who was an inspirational teacher educator and K-8 teacher of Spanish.