GWATFL Conference Associates
Present at GWATFL Conferences!
Save the date for the 2024 GWATFL Fall Conference - November 2nd
GWATFL Fall Conference is November 2, 2024
Maria Silva
Biography
Maria is a Venezuelan English teacher and a Specialist in Foreign Language teaching, and her career journey started in 2004. She taught English back in her country until 2015 and worked as a Spanish teacher at Georgetown, High School SC until 2020. Maria has been working for DCPS since 2020, starting as a Middle School Spanish teacher for two years, and is now committed to Elementary English Language Teaching. Maria leads the Family Engagement Leadership Team at her school and works with passion and dedication to building great family relationships in her school community.
Maria participated in VENTESOL (Venezuelan Teachers of English to Speakers of Foreign Languages) from 2009-2015 and is currently part of WATESOL (Washington Area Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages). She serves as an NNEST Chair in the organization. She has presented at several conferences about technology in language teaching and cultural activities. Maria loves integrating cultural awareness into her lesson plans and develops cultural projects and festivals with her students.
Maria is a GWATFL Conference Associate as part of GWATFL MAP since 2022 and she became a GWATFL board member in 2023. Her action plan includes calling for conference proposals, evaluating them, and communicationg with presenters. She is also in charge of the conference platforms Eventbrite and Sched for GWATFL conferences. Besides, she designs presenters’ badges, schedules presenters sessions, and promotes them through social media. As GWATFL board member, Maria supports GWATFL initiatives with other tasks.
Contact
Email • teachermaryusa@gmail.com
Twitter •
Instagram • @bilingualeducator
Youtube • @bilingualeducator
Diana Sarabia
Biography
Diana has been the World Language Spanish Teacher at Wheatley Education Campus (District of Columbia Public Schools) since August 2020. Prior to this role, she served as Lecturer of Spanish at the State University of New York at Plattsburgh. She received her bachelor’s degree in Journalism from Universidad Autónoma de Barranquilla (Colombia) and her master’s degree and doctorate in Spanish from the University of Ottawa (Canada). Her Ph.D. dissertation was published by Universitas Castellae in 2009: Sueños y desencantos de novelas y películas cubanas del “período especial” [Dreams and Disenchantments in Novels and Films of the Cuban “Special Period”]. She has also published articles in academic journals. Her new area of interest is bilingualism and the sociological impact of knowing more than one language.