Upcoming Learning Opportunities

Hello friends!  This quick post is to let you know about some learning opportunities that I have coming up if you are interested in learning more about bilingual storytime or providing outreach to Spanish-speaking communities.

First, I am super excited (and nervous!) to be presenting at ALA at the end of the month.  The Office for Literacy and Outreach Services has asked me to present a session on bilingual storytime for librarians who may not be bilingual themselves.  The session will be 90-minutes, focused on the "how-to" of launching a new  bilingual storytime program, and it will incorporate demonstration in order to give participants some of the flavor of bilingual storytime as well.  Here is the official description and information:

Bilingual and Culturally Inclusive Storytime Programs

WHEN: 

Saturday, June 29, 2013 - 1:00pm to 2:30pm

LOCATION: 

Hyatt Regency McCormick Place

Regency Ballroom D

DESCRIPTION: 

Latinos are the youngest and fastest-growing demographic in the country, with many Latino children growing up in Spanish-speaking homes. Bilingual storytimes provide an opportunity to model early literacy practices for parents, to discover new stories and songs and to celebrate the gift of bilingualism – all in two languages! This session will describe how librarians who do not speak Spanish can implement bilingual storytime programs. The models discussed will be (a) truly bilingual programs offered by working with bilingual community partners and (b) predominantly English programs which are intentionally inclusive of Latino culture and the Spanish language. Participants will leave the session with new ideas for books, songs and rhymes to incorporate into their storytime programs, as well as useful online resources for program planning. Tools for explaining and promoting early literacy and school readiness skills to Spanish-speaking parents will also be shared.

I also have two online classes being offered this summer through Library Juice Academy.  The first is a class on outreach to Spanish-speakers called "Connecting with Spanish-Speaking Communities."  It is designed to be most useful to library staff who want to learn how to better connect Spanish-speaking immigrant communities with library services, particularly when they are new to this work and/or when the organization lacks bilingual/bicultural staff.  The class runs July 1 - July 28.  More information is below:

Connecting with Spanish-Speaking Communities

Instructor: Katie Scherrer
Dates: July 1-28, 2013
Credits: 1.5 CEUs
Price: $175

Description: A 4-week online course through which participants create an Outreach Plan designed to increase library use by and service to Spanish-speaking immigrant communities. This course is designed to be most useful to organizations and staff serving communities of first-generation, Spanish-speaking immigrants and their families, particularly when organizations lack bilingual/bicultural staff. Participants learn strategies, discover resources and develop confidence they can use to reach out to this underserved community and connect them with library services.

Learning Objectives:

• Students will identify and select appropriately useful online and print resources available to libraries serving Latinos and Spanish-speakers.
• Students will generate strategies for building relationships between Latino community and the library, based on case studies and real-life examples of successful outreach.
• Students will identify specific barriers to library access experienced by Latino and Spanish-speaking communities and articulate specific outreach steps to remove access barriers.
• Students will apply the outreach process to their own specific organizations by identifying potential partner agencies and community leaders serving Spanish-speakers in their communities.
• Students will generate ideas for effectively marketing relevant library services to Latino and Spanish-speaking communities.
• Students incorporate this learning into the creation of an Outreach Plan for their organization.

I would love to see some of the readers of this blog at ALA or in one of my classes, so please be sure to introduce yourself if you do attend!  As always, if you have any questions, you can contact me here.