Myriam (Mimi) Met

Friday AM Workshop
Friday PM Workshop

Saturday Keynote Address
 

Dr. Myriam Met (Mimi) is Acting Director of the National Foreign Language Center at the University of Maryland, where her work focuses primarily on K-12 foreign language policy.  Her previous positions include supervisor of foreign language programs K-12, English for Speakers of Other Languages, and bilingual education for major urban and suburban school districts, including responsibility for designing, implementing, and supervising a variety of language program models at all grade levels.

Mimi has chaired the New Visions in Foreign Language Education initiative since its inception, an undertaking that has brought focus on a national foreign language agenda, and has fostered collaboration at the national, regional, and state levels within the K-20 foreign language education community. She was also the founder and first president of the National Association of District Supervisors of Foreign Languages; a founding member, and later president, of the National Network for Early Language Learning; and currently serves on the Executive Council of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.  She has provided consultant services to school districts, state departments and ministries of education, universities, professional associations and private agencies throughout the United States, as well as in Europe, Asia, South America, and Canada.  She has published extensively in books and refereed journals on topics related to foreign language, ESL, and bilingual education.

The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages awarded Mimi the Florence Steiner Award for Leadership in Foreign Language Education, K-12, in 1983 and the Papalia Award for Excellence in Teacher Education in 1999.  She has also received a Pioneer in Bilingual Education Award from the National Association for Bilingual Education and the Palmes Academiques from the Government of France.

 Stephen Krashen
Friday Keynote Address
Friday PM Workshop
Saturday PM Special Presentation

Stephen Krashen completed his Ph.D. in Linguistics at UCLA (1972), and is Professor Emeritus of Learning and Instruction, at the University of Southern California. He is an expert in the field of linguistics, specializing in theories of language acquisition and development.  Much of his research has involved the study of non-English and bilingual language acquisition.

Recently Dr. Krashen’s research has focused on reading and its effects on language acquisition and academic success. In the late 1970s, Stephen Krashen began promoting the "natural approach" to language teaching, which he laid out in a landmark text he co-wrote with Tracy Terrell. His ideas about the difference between learning and acquisition have strongly influenced the field of ESL/EFL for several decades. He has been invited to deliver over 500 lectures at universities throughout the United States and the rest of the world. In the past five years, Stephen Krashen has fought to save whole language and bilingual education in the United States and, more recently, has been lobbying for "recreational reading" and better-stocked school libraries because of research relating both to higher achievement.

Dr. Krashen is the author of more than 325 articles and books in the fields of bilingual education, neurolinguistics, second language acquisition and literacy. His publications have received numerous awards:  He was the winner of the 1982 Mildenberger Award, given for his book, Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning (Prentice-Hall).  He was co-winner of the Pimsleur Award, given by the American Council of Foreign Language Teachers for the best published article in 1985.  His 1986 paper "Lateralisation, language learning and the critical period" was selected as Citation Class by Current Contents. In 1993 the Distinguished Presentation related to School Library Media Centers, was awarded by editors of the School Library Media Annual. He was the 1999 Honoree at the National Association for Bilingual Education Annual Meeting.