Drs. David & Yvonne Freeman, University of Texas, PANAM

David E. Freeman is a professor of reading and Yvonne S. Freeman is a professor in the Bilingual Education Program, both at the University of Texas, Pan American. The Freemans have published numerous articles and book chapters jointly and separately on the topics of second language teaching, biliteracy, bilingual education, and second language acquisition. Their most recent joint endeavor, Closing the Achievement Gap: How to Reach Limited Formal Schooling and Long-Term English Learners (January, 2002) reviews the research on older struggling English learners and suggests appropriate instruction for them. David and Yvonne Freeman are the authors of several books from Heinemann, including La enseñanza de la lectura y la escritura en español en el aula bilingüe (1998), Teaching Reading and Writing in Spanish in the Bilingual Classroom (1997), and Between Worlds: Access to Second Language Acquisition (1994), which received the MLA Mildenberger Prize from the Modern Language Association for outstanding research in the field of foreign and second language teaching. Yvonne is also the co-author of the soon-to-be released book How to Align Literacy Instruction, Assessment, & Standards: & Achieve Results You've Never Dreamed Possible.

The Freeman' s research interests include second language acquisition, bilingual education and literacy for bilingual learners. Besides doing staff development with school districts across the country, they also regularly present at international, national, and state conferences. Internationally, they spent a year in Mérida, Venezuela at the Universidad de Los Andes as Fulbright scholars, in addition to working with bilingual teachers in Argentina and Uruguay. More recently, they have taught courses in Spain and Lithuania.

In addition to their other publications, the Freemans are authors of Rigby's new ESL program, On Our Way to English.

(This biographical statement was borrowed from the Puerto Rico TESOL Convention Web site.)