Elizabeth Jim\u00e9nez Salinas<\/strong> is a pioneer in bilingual education and a tireless advocate for emergent bilingual students, with projects such as launching the Seal of Biliteracy in California and Hawaii. She has authored several Spanish-language children\u2019s books, as well as handbooks for teachers and English Learner support materials for more than 25 K\u201312 textbooks. In addition to her experience as a bilingual educator, she served as Legislative Aide to California Assembly Member Peter Chac\u00f3n, working on ground-breaking legislation for emergent bilinguals. She holds a master\u2019s degree from Claremont Graduate University and currently works in the College of Education at the University of Hawaii. She started her own consulting firm, GEMAS, in 2000. The word GEMAS means \u201cgems\u201d in Spanish and is made up of the initials of her five children.<\/p>\n<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I first began working as a bilingual teacher, a colleague asked me to join her parent conference as an interpreter. During the conference, my colleague told the parent that her third-grade son was performing at a first-grade level. The parent got confused and asked, \u201cThen why isn\u2019t he in first grade?\u201d My colleague was 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Discover how Star Assessments, myON, Accelerated Reader, and other Renaissance solutions will help you to better understand and build on your emergent bilingual students\u2019 assets this school year.<\/p>\n","link_text":"Empower bilingual learners","link_url":"\/inspiring-emergent-bilinguals\/","link_tab":"same"},"simple_author":[{"author_name":"Elizabeth Jim\u00e9nez Salinas","author_role":"Bilingual Education Advocate and Author"}],"hide_toc":false,"no_drop_cap":false},"yoast_head":"\n
Empowering Emergent Bilingual Learners | Renaissance<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n