ELL Conference 2027

As schools become increasingly multilingual, creating meaningful access and belonging for every learner requires intentional design. The Multilingual Mosaic: Language, Access and Belonging by Design brings together educators and leaders to explore how the many languages, identities, roles, and perspectives within a school community can work together to strengthen learning.

The conference welcomes EAL specialists, classroom and content-area teachers, coordinators, learning support educators, and school leaders. Across four interconnected strands, participants will examine the instructional practices, collaborative approaches, data-informed systems, and inclusive cultures that help multilingual learners thrive.

All educators are welcome. Whether your work focuses directly on language learning, subject-area instruction, student support, or schoolwide leadership, you have a role in shaping the multilingual mosaic. Administrators and school leaders are especially encouraged to join conversations about how policies, professional learning, data, resources, and shared responsibility can be intentionally designed to support language, access, and belonging across the school.

1. Multilingual School Culture and Systems

Designing schools where multilingual learners thrive.

Explore how leaders, coordinators, and educators can create policies, systems, and professional learning that support multilingual communities. Sessions in this strand focus on building sustainable structures, using data to inform schoolwide decisions and support, fostering inclusive school cultures, and leading strategic initiatives that place language, access, and belonging at the center of school life.

2. Language Across the Curriculum

Making language visible in every classroom.

Discover practical approaches for integrating language and content learning across subject areas. This strand highlights language-rich instruction, data-informed teaching practices, content-language integration, and strategies that help multilingual learners access rigorous learning while developing academic language.

3. Multilingual Identity and Belonging

Honoring languages, identities, and the human side of learning.

This strand explores how schools can cultivate environments where multilingualism is recognized as an asset and every learner feels seen, valued, and connected. Sessions may focus on equity and inclusion, translanguaging, social-emotional learning, student identity, and the opportunities that language learning creates for meaningful relationships and global understanding.

4. Collaboration and Shared Responsibility Across the School

Supporting multilingual learners is a collective effort.

Examine how educators, specialists, leaders, and families can work together to create coherent support systems for multilingual learners. Topics may include co-planning, co-teaching, partnerships between EAL and learning support teams, supporting multilingual learners with exceptionalities, and engaging parents and caregivers as valued partners in the learning journey