FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
JNCL-NCLIS WELCOMES 2021 ELECTED OFFICERS AND BOARD OF DIRECTORS.
WASHINGTON, D.C, December 23, 2020 -- The Joint National Committee for Languages and the National Council for Languages and International Studies (JNCL-NCLIS) today announced the 2021 Officers and the addition of five newly-elected board members.
Officers
President: Amanda Seewald, MARACAS
President-Elect: Caitilin Walsh, ATA
Treasurer: Giovanni Donatelli, The Language Group
Secretary: Howie Berman, ACTFL
At-Large Executive Committee Members: John Carlino, NYSAFLT and Greg Barfield, FLAG
Incoming Board Members 2021
John Carlino, NYSAFLT
John Carlino has been the NYSAFLT representative to JNCL-NCLIS since the early 2000s. He has served several terms on the JNCL-NCLIS board and two terms as an at-large member of the executive committee. Mr. Carlino is the executive director of NYSAFLT and also serves as the executive director of the Northeast Conference (NECTFL). Mr. Carlino is a former high school teacher of German and French. He is currently a part-time lecturer at Buffalo State College, where he coordinates a student teacher exchange with a teacher preparation institute near Stuttgart. He also supervises student teachers in world languages through SUNY Geneseo.
Arthur Chou, Academic Learning Company
Arthur Chou is a social entrepreneur. He advocates the biliteracy and dual language school movement to promote education equity for English Learner students, encourage multilingualism and prepare every student to become a global citizen.
Arthur Chou is the founder and managing director for Academic Learning Company, LLC which operates SealofBiliteracy.org, DualLanguageSchools.org and Velázquez Press. Arthur has helped more than 30 states establishing their state Seal of Biliteracy and build an online community for dual language school educators, parents and administrators.
He is the publisher of Velázquez Press, which published the oldest and largest Spanish and English dictionary based in the United States. Velázquez Press is the preeminent authority of academic language and authentic biliteracy and has sponsored 30,000+ Biliteracy recognition medals for the Seal of Biliteracy movement.
Arthur backpacked in South America in his 20’s and learned Spanish during his travels. Besides Spanish and English, Arthur speaks 4 other languages and has traveled all 50 states and 50+ countries.
Fernando Rubio, UUT
Fernando Rubio is Professor of Spanish Linguistics at the University of Utah, where he is also Director of the Second Language Teaching and Research Center (a Title VI National Language Resource Center). He serves or has served on a number of professional organizations for the past two decades including the Utah Foreign Language Association, The Modern Language Association, The College Board and
ACTFL. He is currently President Elect of the National Federation of Modern Language Teachers Associations.
Professor Rubio has published several books and numerous articles and book chapters on issues related to second language acquisition, proficiency assessment, and technology-enhanced language teaching.
Ryan Smith, PLAN
A former teacher of Spanish, Ryan Smith is currently an Assistant Principal of Vaughn
Middle School in the Washoe County School District. Previously, Ryan was the Career
& Technical Education Program Coordinator, AVID District Director, and World
Languages Program Coordinator in WCSD, located in the Reno/Lake Tahoe region of Northern Nevada. Ryan is also the Past President of PLAN (Professional Language Association of Nevada), Nevada’s 2015 World Languages Teacher of the Year, and most recently NADSFL (National Association of District Supervisors of Foreign Languages) 2018 Supervisor of the Year. Ryan advocated and led the statewide implementation of the Seal of Biliteracy in Nevada. He also served on the committee to rewrite and implement the Nevada Academic Content Standards for World Languages. Ryan is extremely involved in world languages on a local, regional, and national level by being a part of NADSFL, ACTFL, NCSSFL, and a member of the first LILL (Leadership Initiative for Language Learning) cohort, which he now assists in the development and
facilitation.
Duarte Silva, CLTA
Dr. Duarte Silva continues to serve as Executive Director Emeritus of the California World Language Project (CWLP) in the Graduate School of Education at Stanford University. The Project, designed to strengthen and enhance professional learning opportunities for California's language educators, currently has seven regional sites at campuses of the California State University, independent colleges and universities, as well as the University of California. As the founding Executive Director, Dr. Silva was responsible for providing leadership to the Project’s programs statewide, as well as, for overseeing the evaluating of the programs outcomes implemented in each of CWLP regional sites.
Dr. Silva currently serves on the Advocacy Committee of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), the Global Seal of Biliteracy Advisor Board, the Foreign Language Annals and STARTALK Editorial Boards and is the California Language Teachers’ Association (CLTA) delegate to the Joint National Committee for Languages, (JNCL).
As a former member of the California Curriculum Commission, Dr. Silva, chaired the World Language Subject Matter Committee and was a member of several other committees that advise the State Board of Education on a variety of language related issues. In his capacity as Commissioner, and of CWLP’s Executive
Director, he has chaired several state adoptions of instructional materials for World Language and English Language Development students, and oversaw the development of criteria for the role of technology in supporting the teaching of languages. He was appointed by the California State Superintendent of Public
Instruction to serve as a member of the Professional Development English Learner Advisory Committee, and by the Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC) as a member of its English Language Development Credential Panel and served as Chair of the Recruitment and Retention Committee for Language Educators for the New Vision in Action Project that proposed the establishment of ACTFL’s
National Teacher of the Year.
About JNCL-NCLIS:
Established in 1972, the Joint National Committee for Languages (JNCL) and the National Council for Languages and International Studies (NCLIS) represent the Language Enterprise to the US government and business community. JNCL-NCLIS membership includes over 130 organizations, which employ more than 300,000 language professionals globally. Together, JNCL-NCLIS form an all-inclusive network and encompasses all areas of the language field: exchanges, research, technology, translation, interpretation, localization, publishing, testing and more. JNCL-NCLIS’ mission is to ensure that Americans have the opportunity to learn English and at least one other language.