The University of Arkansas presents Robin Scarcella, who directs the Program of Academic English and ESL at the University of California at Irvine, as the featured speaker at the 8th Annual ESL Symposium set for Feb. 26 in Fayetteville.

The symposium is sponsored by the College of Education and Health Professions and will take place at the Hilton Garden Inn, 1325 N. Palak Drive. Registration may be done online.

Scarcella is a professor of academic English who has presented workshops to more than 10,000 teachers. Her presentation in Fayetteville will be titled "Advances in Teaching Academic Literacy to English Language Learners: Practices that Make a Difference."

Her focus is on enhancing the academic language of English learners in English language arts, mathematics and science classrooms. She has edited more than 25 textbooks and contributed to an IES Practice Guide for teaching English language learners. Her most recent book, written with Carol Olson and Matuchniak and titled Best Practices for Teaching English Learners Writing, has been published by Teacher's College Press.

She has written more than 60 scholarly publications, including more than 25 research articles that appear in such journals as The TESOL Quarterly, Brain and Language, and Studies in Second Language Acquisition.

Scarcella received a doctoral degree in linguistics from the University of Southern California and a master's degree in second language acquisition-education from Stanford University.