(Charlotte, NC) — The Southern Conference on Language Teaching (SCOLT) held its annual conference in Charlotte, NC from February 18-20, 2016. During the conference, Laura Roché Youngworth, a French teacher at Beaumont Middle School in Lexington, Kentucky was awarded the 2016 SCOLT Teacher of the Year Award. Each state in the thirteen state SCOLT region may send one state language Teacher of the Year to the regional conference.

Laura was selected on the basis of her excellent teaching, her strong contributions to world languages, her letters of recommendation, and an interview. She will now advance to the national competition sponsored by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Language (ACTFL). During the ACTFL convention in Boston this November, she and four other regional teachers will vie for the title of ACTFL National Language Teacher of the Year. The teacher selected in November will serve as the national spokesperson for language learning in 2017.

Since 1992, Laura has taught multiple levels of French in middle and high school and is the World Languages Content Lead for Fayette County Public Schools. Laura also works with and leads local and national efforts to improve world language education and is the host of the monthly Podcast series Language Talk: KWLA. Her presentations and publications are numerous ranging from methods for increasing student communication to helping teachers build language programs. For her contributions to education, she has been featured in the University of Kentucky Alumni Magazine and The Kentucky Teacher.

In the words of her recommenders, Laura brings “a wealth of knowledge not only of French and the French-speaking people, but also of strong teaching practices that both challenge and engage the students while developing in them a strong interest for the language and the world around them.” Her “learning environment is alive and contagious! Students want to participate, students want to learn, and students want to reach her high expectations!” SCOLT congratulates Laura on this award and thanks her for her efforts to promote world language learning.