Applaudissez! Bob has been named Teacher of the Year for the Southern region. We are lucky to have him as a regular reader and contributor to the group. Next year at ACTFL, the five regional conference winners will compete for ACTFL Teacher of the Year. We wish Bob luck. His stance on CI being so strong, it will be interesting to see what happens in 2014. Here is the announcement that got sent around Georgia:
Dear Colleagues:
Congratulations to Georgia’s own Dr. Bob Patrick.
Dr. Bob Patrick, Latin teacher at Parkview High School in Gwinnett County Public Schools, has been named Teacher of the Year for the Southern region. Dr. Patrick was awarded this honor on Saturday, April 13, 2013 during the Southern Conference on Language Teaching (SCOLT) annual conference in Birmingham, Alabama. He will go on compete for the title of National World Languages Teacher of the Year at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) national conference in Orlando, Florida in November, 2013.
Dr. Patrick has spent his teaching career in nearly equal parts in Alabama and Georgia. He holds a PhD in Latin and Classical studies from the University of Florida and is a National Board Certified Teacher in World Languages. He has devoted most of his teaching career to applying the theories and best practices of second language acquisition to the teaching and learning of Latin demonstrating that if it’s good for language learning, it’s good for Latin students. He and a colleague in California began the Latin-Best Practices list serve for Latin teachers in 2006 where today nearly 1000 Latin teachers share their use of these modern strategies in teaching this ancient and still very much alive language. He is a long time participant and advocate of immersion intensives (which are growing in number and participation every year) for Latin teachers and sits on the board of the North American Institute of Living Latin Studies (NAILLS/SALVI) as well as the board of North American Cambridge Classics Project. He has taught workshops for Latin and other language teachers all over the US and in the UK teaching Comprehensible Input strategies and showing teachers how to begin to implement them. He has published articles on these pedagogical issues in Teaching Classics Online as well as The Journal of Classics Teaching. Named the 2012 Latin Teacher of the Year by the Georgia Classical Association, and editor of The Classicist, the Association’s journal.
Dr. Patrick was previously honored with the 2012 Foreign Language Association of Georgia (FLAG) Teacher of the Year Award. Yours, Jon Valentine Jon Valentine Educational Program Manager: Languages and Global Initiatives Office of Curriculum and Instruction Georgia Department of Education