Norman Sales
ELA Department Head at Farrington High School and Literacy Coach
Norman Sales is a multilingual educator who was born and raised in Ilocos Norte, Philippines. He started teaching sheltered English classes at Farrington High School after immigrating to Hawaii in 2012. Currently, he is the English Language Arts department head and the Literacy Coach at Farrington. He has been a member of the Hawaii Department of Education’s Multilingualism Policy Advisory Committee since 2019.
His work, which is centered around celebrating multilingualism, has resulted in more than 100 Seal of Biliteracy awards for graduating students from Farrington High School and the collaborative publication of Voice: Poetry by the Youth of Kalihi.
* Schedule: Norman will be presenting in a breakout session with Elianna Kantar titled “Amplifying Multilingual Student Voice through Poetry” on Thursday, March 4th 1:00-2:00 pm MST.
Breakout Session Description: In this presentation, the speakers will reflect on how they collaborated to craft a process for the publication of their students’ multilingual voices by using poetry to elevate the voice of linguistically and culturally diverse students. By centering the idea that students have the ability and power to tell their own stories, the speakers were able to facilitate an anthology that resulted in almost 1,000 copies purchased worldwide and both local and international notoriety. Session participants will leave with a better understanding of why and how to support their students’ multilingualism. In addition, they will learn how the process of student self-publication can be applied to their own classrooms.
Featured Text: Voice Poetry by the Youth of Kalihi by Students of Farrington High School
“The voice of culturally and linguistically diverse students is often unheard. This voice, anchored in their experiences as children of immigrant families in one of the toughest neighborhoods on O’ahu, highlights what it means to be adolescent in today’s Hawai’i. Featured in this book are the stories of long-term English Language Learners (ELLs), newcomers, and students who are part of a 1.5 generation of immigrants.” Book Link: https://amzn.to/36e8slM Twitter: #VoiceKalihi Instagram: @voicekalihi
