Betsy R. Rymes

Betsy R. Rymes is a Professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education and holds a secondary appointment in the Penn Arts & Sciences Anthropology Graduate Group. Her research focuses on language use in educational contexts, sociolinguistics, and multilingualism. She teaches in both the Graduate School of Education and the Anthropology Graduate Group. Rymes' career includes teaching English learners in Los Angeles, followed by a PhD in Applied Linguistics from UCLA. She founded the TELL program (2002), a U.S. Department of Education-funded initiative to train bilingual educators. Her work explores how language and social interaction shape learning, with a focus on citizen sociolinguistics—online discussions of language use and identity. She maintains a blog, 'Citizen Sociolinguistics,' to engage the public in linguistic analysis.

Key publications include Classroom Discourse Analysis (2015), Communicating Beyond Language (2014), and How We Talk about Language (2020). Her research integrates linguistic anthropology and discourse analysis to highlight linguistic diversity as a resource in education. Grants and projects include the TELL program and studies on integrating sociolinguistics into high school curricula.