Plenary talk: "Making the Connection: Identifying the ESL Allies you didn’t know you had"

Abstract: Whether one works with adult ESL learners, instructs future ESL teachers, or teaches in the K-12 arena, it is easy to sometimes feel one is working without a support system or a safety-net.  What can be hard to realize is that there is a wide variety of individuals and services available to help the teacher and the student. The speaker will discuss the importance of support structures and help identify available resources both on the local and national levels. He will use his work place as a model for cooperation, customization, and creativity.  He will help identify how to seek out strategies from professionals who teach populations other than one’s own, and how one can extrapolate these modules to fit specific populations.  

Biographical statement: Nimo Tirimanne, a native of Sri Lanka, has lived in the US for just over 25 years. Much of that time was spent on the west coast, in the states of Washington, Oregon, and California. He moved to Pittsburgh in the fall of 1998. Nimo’s academic background is in pedagogy and library and information science with research interests in educational services to and information access of refugee populations in camps. He has taught high school, ESL, ABE, and at the graduate level. He currently works at the Welcome Center for Immigrants and Internationals in Squirrel Hill as their Director of Client Services. He refuses to take life too seriously insisting that others do enough of that to compensate for his lack of gravitas. He lives in the neighbourhood of Morningside with his two greyhounds Mochan Flower and Sheer Ego.

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