Happy Holidays!

2015 in Review

As I reflect on the past year for Esperanza Education, I recognize that it has been a year of both stability and change. Esperanza Education is now in its 8th year of operation, and our Language, Learning, and Culture Blog has been running for 2.5 years. Our readership continues to grow, and we have published almost 300 posts to date! I am ever grateful to my fellow teachers and authors, and especially to all those who read and share our stories.

Growth and Changes

As with any kind of growth, changes are inevitable. This year, we were sad to say goodbye to Heather who has been blogging with us from day one. We will miss her posts on raising a bilingual daughter, and especially her mouth-watering descriptions of Oaxacan food culture.

This year we also got to share experiences with our newest teachers, Martín and Kath. Martín, who finished his M.Ed. in Vancouver and moved back to Peru this year, has added to our linguistic repertoire by writing thoughtful and intriguing posts in Spanish. Kath has brought us into her high school classroom, sharing her adventures in everything from stereotypes to sex ed with young English learners. Her unique experiences intrigued an international audience when she was recently interviewed for the Teaching Tips & Tales podcast.

Now blog veterans, Mary and Yane have also been through changes this year. Mary made it through one of the most important election campaigns in Canadian history (in my opinion), working with the democracy-building Dogwood Initiative. All the while, she continued to share fascinating research and reflections with us. Yane has been to and from Brazil a few times this year, and continues to dazzle the world with her beautiful posts about that country, written in Portuguese. Her posts bring in readership from all over the world, and her Introduction to Brazil is still our most popular post to date.

Our most popular post of 2015 was one I wrote about Maps for Language Lovers. And speaking of maps, check out the freshly launched Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Place Names Map! This map shows place names in and around Vancouver in one of our local indigenous languages, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish). It was created by Kwi Awt Stelmexw, where I am now working part-time on language revitalization planning.

And that about sums up our year.

Much Love from Us to You

Thank you to all of you who continue to build a space for progressive language lovers through Esperanza Education! We will be back to blogging on January 6th, 2016.

Wishing you all very Happy Holidays! Felices Fiestas! Joyeuses Fêtes! Boas Festas! Mutlu Bayramlar! أعيادا سعيدة!