Kathy Salmon is the PD Director South for the ESL-C. Currently she is a Curriculum Manager, ESL for Alberta Education, seconded from the Calgary Board of Education. Kathy's teaching degree is an Elementary Language Major with an ESL Minor and she received her Masters of Education, TESL from the University of Calgary. Her experience includes ESL Designate K - 6, ESL Learning Leader K-9, ESL Specialist K-12 and Assistant Principal at Connaught Elementary. She recently taught Gr. 3/4 Literacy, Kindergarten Oral Language Development, and Gr. 5/6 Math, Science and Phys. Ed. Kathy was involved as a writer of the new Alberta K-12 ESL Proficiency Benchmarks. She embeds explicit language instruction into differentiated outcome based learning experiences for ELLs. She believes that understanding language acquisition helps teachers to teach ELLs more effectively in the context of the classroom.