Engaging English Learners With Asset-Based Approaches

Leslie Grimm is an Assistant Director of Educator Learning, Research and Practice at WIDA. She leads the vision, development, and implementation of the PL Design process for new product and service development. She works closely with Professional Learning Specialists and Researchers to design and develop trusted and research-informed professional learning experiences that bring our WIDA English Language Development Standards Framework and assessments to life in early childhood and K-12 contexts.

Prior to joining WIDA in 2011, Leslie taught multilingual learners in multiple capacities for 12 years, holding positions as a Bilingual Kindergarten teacher, a Bilingual Resource teacher (K-5), a Kindergarten teacher and an ESL Coach in Madison, Wisconsin. Upon leaving the classroom, Leslie served as an ESL/Bilingual Program Leader to provide school- and district-based professional development and support for educators and administrators on how to build capacity for developing multilingual learner’s language within content areas and to share the responsibility of scaffolding instruction and assessment to support the academic and linguistic achievement of multilingual students. As a teach educator, she served as adjunct faculty at Edgewood College in the TESOL program.

Leslie has a M.S. in Educational Leadership and Director of Curriculum and Instruction from Cardinal Stritch University as well as a B.S. in Elementary Education.

Astrid Emily Francis is a nationally recognized English as a Second Language
teacher at Concord High School in Concord, North Carolina. She serves students in
9th-12th grade with various English proficiency levels. Emily is a native
Spanish-speaker who is originally from Guatemala and came to the U.S. as an
unaccompanied minor. Her experience as an English Language Learner inspired
her to become an ESL teacher and affords her a deep understanding of the
challenges her students must overcome to find success. Emily earned a BA in
Spanish and a MAT in ESL from UNC-Charlotte. She serves as a professional
development facilitator, motivational speaker, and Keynote. Emily forms part of the
Executive Board of The Carolinas TESOL (teachers of English to Speakers of
Other Languages).
Emily is the author of If You Only Knew: Letters from an Immigrant Teacher.
Emily served as teacher liaison to the Cabarrus County Board of Education as
Teacher of the Year 2016.
As a leader, Emily’s focus is to inspire students to dream more, learn more, do
more, and become more.