Motta Selected Providence’s 2017 Teacher of the Year
Motta Selected Providence’s 2017 Teacher of the Year
With over 20 years experience in ESL education, she credits her success to building a community in her classroom. Motta says she spends a lot of time on kindness, and building relationships with students.
As part of the Teacher-of-the-Year application, five of Motta’s students co-wrote a letter to the selection committee that said, “Mrs. Motta is more than just a teacher for us. She is part of our lives. She worries about us, but also looks for solutions to our problems. She makes us feel better about ourselves and helps us learn from our mistakes.”
“When they know you respect them, they respect you,” Motta says. She explains when her students know the mutual respect shows she cares about her students and that helps them flourish.
Striving to create new and better learning systems for ESL, Motta developed a model for an urban ESL program, and Gilbert Stuart will be implementing that next year.
She also believes that suburban and smaller districts should embrace English Language Learners.
“I don’t think ESL is going to be an urban thing anymore,” Motta says, “I love that duel language programs are growing. If we could get more people to embrace that bi-lingual, multilingualism, than ESL won’t be seen as such a separate entity, but as a more inclusive program.”
Motta says she doesn’t have much time to celebrate, she serves as chair of the ELL State Advisory Council, she’s coordinated and organized an event on May 23 at Providence College where over 150 English-Learner students from across the state will have their work displayed.