Presenters

Bill Ainsworth

Bill Ainsworth is communications director for the California Department of Education and a leader in the Department's Global California 2030 initiative. He has been in state communications work for the past 10 years. Previously, he was a newspaper reporter, who covered California state government and politics.

Ainsworth graduated from Stanford University in 1983, earned a master's in journalism at Columbia University in 1984 and served as a Reuter's Journalism Fellow in 1988.

Jean Charconnet

Jean Charconnet is the current French Language Attaché at the French Consulate in San Francisco. Before coming to California, he was an associate professor at Paris VIII University, teaching in the Master of Language Teaching. He is a member of the research laboratory CNRS UMR 7023, Formal Structures of Language, where he presented on the plasticity of reasoning, which summarized his work on analogy (Charconnet, 2003, Analogie et logique naturelle, Peter Lang, Berne), in relation with the other canonical forms of reasoning. He also presented at the Sorbonne this year on linguistic education policy and the reform of education in Vanuatu.

Karl Cogard

Since 2015, Karl Cogard has been serving as Education Attaché, head of Educational Affairs Department, Embassy of France, Washington D.C. Former teacher at the University of Pau (1996-2004) and at the University of Paris 13 (2012-2015) and former director of Alliance Française (2004-2008, Chennai, India and 2008-2012, Reykjavik, Iceland).

Sarah rice Fox ("Sally")

Before retiring in 2018, Sally Fox served as a coordinator at the San Diego County Office of Education (SDCOE) for 12 years, specializing in providing professional learning related to integrated and designated ELD, dual language immersion, and world languages. Prior to her work at SDCOE, Sally was the lead English Learner (EL) resource teacher for La Mesa-Spring Valley where she became a certified trainer for OCDE Project GLAD® (Guided Language Acquisition Design), a premier instructional approach and model of professional learning for multilingual educators and teachers of ELs. Sally began her career in education as a Spanish/English bilingual 3rd grade teacher in Imperial Beach, CA. She had earned a BA from San Diego State University in French literature, and later earned her MA in education from California State University, San Marcos. She had the privilege of serving on the Board for CABE (California Association for Bilingual Education) and has published articles for NABE (National Association for Bilingual Education), DLENM (Dual Language Education New Mexico) and on a Mandarin resources website at mandarin.sdcoe.net. In 2017, Sally was honored for her work in literacy by the Greater San Diego Reading Association. She recently served as a co-chair of the World Languages Standards Advisory Committee for the California Department of Education, appointed by the State Board of Education.

"Emma" Amrein Franks

Emmanuelle "Emma" Amrein Franks is the Executive Director of the Alliance Française de Pasadena. She is a native French speaker from Strasbourg, France. She has a BA in English and a Master’s degree in French as a foreign and as a second language in schools and businesses. She was a language teacher with over a decade of experience teaching English, French, and Spanish in France and in California. Students varied from beginner to Masters level, at companies, in colleges and in language schools. She is also a DELF-DALF/TCF examiner, a translator (English-French) and a writer. She has 2 blogs : one about tips to discover California and one about the French language and culture : http://califrenchlife.com/ She became a teacher trainer certified by TV5MONDE in 2017.

She is eager to share her language knowledge and experience.

Twitter : https://twitter.com/CaliFrenchlife

E-mail : emma.amrein@gmail.com

Georgia Geerlings

Michèle Harward

Anne Lair

Olivier Ngo

Olivier Ngo is the Higher Education and French Language Attaché at the French Consulate in Los Angeles (@FranceinLA) where he works to promote French language and to develop academic partnerships between the United States and France.

The mission of the French Embassy’s Cultural Services (@SpeakFrenchinLA) is to strengthen the presence of the French language in American primary, secondary, and post-secondary schools and to support research projects in Humanities and Social Sciences departments.

Valerie Sun, Ed.D.

Valerie Sun (@MlleValsunshine) is the dual-immersion and edtech consultant at EmpowerED Consulting. As a progressive, techy educator of twelve years in private and public schools across elementary and post-secondary education, she developed a tech-infused French dual-immersion curriculum in Glendale Unified School District. She is a certified TV5MONDE trainer, a certified DELF-DALF examiner/corrector, a Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert, a Google Certified Educator - Level 1, and an Apple Teacher. Currently, she teaches STEM and French at a middle school in Covina-Valley Unified School District.

Valerie's dissertation titled Dueling Complexities: Experiences of Dual-Lang Immersion Teachers, focused on dual-immersion teacher experiences. Her goal is to support immersion teachers in their craft as language and culture ambassadors.