On December 2, 2019, students, teachers, and families at Hunter Elementary School hosted an event together with Project EnACTeD participants from UNC Greensboro to celebrate teaching and learning of languages and cultures. Students showcased their language learning through their performances.

All participants shared their thoughts about language teaching and learning. Hunter Elementary School is one of the 4 elementary schools in Guilford County Schools (GCS) that offers a Dual Language/Immersion (DL/I) program in Spanish. Since 2018-2019 academic year, the school started the DL/I program at the Kindergarten level and currently offers dual language classes at both Kindergarten and 1st grade levels. Ms. Analia Wells, Dual Language Curriculum Facilitator at Hunter Elementary School, together with several GCS leaders and educators including Carla Flores-Ballesteros, Mayra Hayes, Soledad Lardies-Dunst, Jackie Martinez-Vesga, and Kimberly Pilling, serves on the advisory board for Project EnACTeD, Engaging and Advancing Community-Centered Teacher Development, funded by the National Professional Development grant from the Department of Education. Since its launch in 2018, 33 educators completed Project EnACTeD teacher education programs at various levels. The project engaged 283 families and obtained feedback from 84 families to strengthen English language and dual language support for students and families from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds.

As participants shared, an ideal school is “a school that is inclusive to all languages, people”, “and teaches more languages to students”. With the support of families and local communities and through the collaboration between the school district and university teacher education program, we hope to continue and expand programs such as the DL/I program at Hunter!