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May 2006 | Jan 2007 | Feb 2007 | March 2007 | April 2007
May 2007 | June 2007
MTM Award Recipient
Cynthia Cen
Newcomer High School
Cynthia Cen was born in Guangzhou, China, and moved with her family to San Francisco in 1985, when she was 8 years old. She attended CEC (the Chinese Education Center), Raphael Weill Elementary, Marina Middle School and Lowell High School and graduated from U.C. Santa Cruz with a bachelor's degree in Modern Literature with a minor in East Asian studies. She taught bilingual students in the 3rd and 4th grades at Golden Gate Elementary for four years. Since then, she has worked with recent immigrant children at Newcomer High School. "I'm working with the student population that I most wanted to serve when I first came into teaching – immigrant English language learners who are struggling with a new language." An inspiring and motivational teacher, Ms. Cen works with immigrant children whose native languages include Spanish, Arabic, Tagalog, Russian and her native language, Chinese. "Because I'm working with very beginning-level English language learners, I have to present everything step by step, with lots of built-in support to help the students understand and complete any task or assignment. I use a lot of facial expressions and body language; I act out vocabulary words and examples. I draw lots of pictures." Ms. Cen publishes a book of her students' writing that shows their progression through the year and uses powerful teaching lessons to connect to the lives of her students. "My students come from all over the world, and they speak many different languages. I teach in English, but I bring the students' native languages into daily learning. It's so important to these newcomers that their language is valued. The inclusion of their language is not only a necessary component to the learning of English, it plays a big part in building a fun and welcoming environment for all." Busy outside of the classroom as well as in, she is a member of the Compliance Review and Book Adoption committees and an enthusiastic contributor at Multilingual Department meetings. She has also been the Newcomer High representative on the District Wide School Site Council. |
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