Institutional Structures & Human Values, offered as Intercultural Community-Building, ED 537.1, through DeSales University, was presented for teachers in ProjecTELL as the first in a series of three integrated one credit courses. It was followed by ED 537.2, Technology and English Language Learners, taught by Ms. Carole Devey Schachter, Technology/Extended Learning Teacher at the Regional Academic Standards Academy of the Bethlehem Area School District; she was also a member of the ESOL Virtual Learning Community Website Strategy Team that developed the ProjecTELL section of the Center for Language Assessment Website. The third course, Action Research, ED 537.3, was taught by Rev. Joseph A. DiMauro, OSFS, Ed.D., DeSales University, Director of ProjecTELL.

Teacher assistants who were doing their course work at LCCC were invited to participate in the intensive 20-hour weekend immersion offerings in order to facilitate building relationships with teachers who were taking their courses with DeSales University. The Community-Building experience afforded the participants an opportunity to build more personal relationships with one another beyond those defined by job description, grade level or school within the district. They were able to learn about the community-building process by building a community themselves with the assembled participants. In turn, they could begin to apply the process to their own learning environments in their home classrooms, schools and communities.

Lastly, teachers were encouraged to begin to identify possible projects that they could implement in their home schools to build on the learning from this experience and their other courses. For many, initial ideas eventually became Strategy Team and/or Action Research projects. The group pictures and Course Descriptions are presented here to provide an insight into the nature of their experience.

As facilitator for Intercultural Community-Building, it was gratifying to work with and come to know all the teachers in both cohorts of ProjecTELL in the Bethlehem Area School District and many of its teacher assistants. My hope is that they will continue to build on their shared experience in the service of English Language Learners throughout the district, and that they will consider contributing to this website as a means of expanding and deepening the sharing that has been initiated through ProjecTELL. I can only hope that their experiences since Intercultural Community-Building, have been as meaningful and enriching as mine have been working with a number of Strategy Teams and finally with the dedicated members of the ESOL Virtual Learning Community Website Strategy Team.

Respectfully submitted,
Stanley J. Nowak Jr., Ph.D., Facilitator, Intercultural Community-Building