Initially a teacher of modern languages in the UK, Frances Bekhechi moved into the field of ESL when the family took up residence in Brussels in the early 80's. She subsequently taught at the International School of Brussels for 24 years, working with children in K - 6th grade, before retiring in October 2013. Frances has always had a particular interest in second language students with diagnosed or suspected learning difficulties and was awarded a sabbatical in order to obtain an OCR certificate in literacy and numeracy support. She subsequently contributed a chapter entitled 'Young Second Language Students who Struggle' to the book: Welcoming Linguistic Diversity in Early Childhood Classrooms, published by Multilingual Matters. She has presented at ECIS and ESL & Mother Tongue conferences and has taken part in a number of accreditation visits for CIS. She is the mother of three bilingual third culture kids.