Kristin Lems

Kristin Lems, Ed.D., is an acclaimed author-educator in the field of ESL/bilingual education, literacy and the arts. She received the 2021 Elliot Judd Outstanding Teacher Award from Illinois TESOL/BE. A two time Fulbright Scholar, she has offered teacher training and taught ESL/EFL in Algeria, Mongolia, Chile, Iran, China, and Argentina and for immigrants and international students in the US. She is a Full Professor of ESL/Bilingual Education at National Louis University, Chicago, where she won the 2018 Excellence in Teaching Award. Kristin has co-authored and co-edited many books, including the upcoming third edition of Building Literacy with Multilingual Learners: Insights from Linguistics (Guilford, 2023; Lems/Soro/Charles). Articles appear in Reading in a Foreign Language, Academia Letters, Reading Teacher, Writing Systems Research, and English Teaching Forum, in addition to a dozen book chapters. She writes a regular column for Illinois Reading Council Journal. Dr. Lems consults and presents, in person and online, about literacy, language, and linguistics for educators in many settings. She is proficient in Spanish, French, and speaks conversational Persian.

Kristin is also a playwright and composer/lyricist, and has written a musical, St. Jane and the Wicked Wicks, based on original sources about her family's relationship with Jane Addams and Hull House, Chicago in the 1890's. Kristin has a musical artist page at Amazon's Artist Central. She has recorded 8 full length albums of original songs that can be found wherever fine music is available.