Dr. Melody Zoch, along with Drs. Jamie Schissel and Ye He in the Teacher Education and Higher Education Department (TEHE), recently received a National Professional Development grant through the US Department of Education Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA).
OELA provides national leadership to help ensure that English Learners and immigrant students attain English proficiency and achieve academic success. In addition to preserving heritage languages and cultures, OELA is committed to prompting opportunities for biliteracy or multiliteracy skills for all students.
For the next five years (2021-2026), the multimillion dollar grant will fund Project IGNITE: Innovation to Grow, Nurture, and Inspire Teachers of English-learners. This project allows Drs. Zoch, Schissel, and He to support preservice English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher preparation, ESL add-on licensure, and professional development for inservice teacher through UNC Greensboro’s Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) program.
Project IGNITE builds on and expands the collaborations among UNCG, Guilford County Schools, Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools, and NC DPI to advance ESL and Dual Language/Immersion teacher preparation in North Carolina. Drs. Tiffany Smith and Bryan Hutchins will continue to serve as evaluators for the project. Learn more.
