Every year FLENJ offers minigrants for teachers to implement innovative projects for their classrooms and for their schools. These grants provide financial support for unique and creative proposals that meet the core standards, enhance professional development and have a direct impact on the development of language skills. This year technology took center stage in the proposals. The following are the winners and their projects for 2010:

Kelli Nadeau Baird teaches middle school French in Egg Harbor Township. Her project is entitled “Snacks and Story Time in French.” Through this grant, Kelli will purchase French books that will enable her students to learn French through authentic literature. Students will then create their own French books that they will share with members of the community in an afternoon of snacks and story telling.

Rosanna Farnese is a Spanish teacher at Palisades Park Jr/Sr High School. Her grant will allow her to purchase video materials with which she can record news in Spanish, thus exposing her students to Hispanic perspectives on politics, economics, and social problems. With the technology students will be able to research news on a chosen topic and present to the class.

Maria Kostis, a French teacher at South Brunswick High School, will purchase two eight-person listening centers with her grant. These centers will provide her students with listening scenarios that expose them to authentic songs, films, and conversations and that allow them to work independently at their own pace.

Shannon Lorenzo teaches high school Spanish in South Plainfield. Using her grant to purchase IPod Nanos, she will create projects that address the presentational mode of communications. Her students will work in collaborative groups to research foods of the Spanish-speaking world and to write and edit show scripts that they will present in videos.

Yamilei Socorro is a Spanish teacher at Egg Harbor Township High School. She will purchase five flip cameras that will enable her students to use technology in the classroom to create, for example, their own weather forecasts for Latin American countries.

*FLENJ is pleased to be able to reward the initiatives of our members and to provide much needed assets for the purchase of materials that enhance the world language programs in New Jersey schools. Congratulations to all of the recipients. *