Jermaine S. McDougald, TESOL Colombia, Liaison Officer

TESOL; Get Inspired, Make a difference  Read More

Dawn Lucovich, President of The Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT), Tokyo, Japan

Language teaching associations have to rethink their programming and online events to respond to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) has launched Zoom for Professional Development (JALT ZPD), a new initiative that aims to facilitate professional development and build a new community of practice for existing and prospective members. JALT has also proposed new possibilities for collaborative presentations in conjunction with other TESOL affiliates. Read More

Charles McKinney, TESOL Kuwait, TESOL Kuwait Executive Board, Website Blog Curator, English Language Academy Instructor at the American University of Iraq

For the past year, TESOL Kuwait has been playing a vigorous role in providing value to its membership, primarily through CPD opportunities that have been advertised via its website and social networks. It has revived its website blog to spark deeper engagement with its members in such unprecedented times of social isolation. Finally, it successfully hosted its historic virtual conference, attracting more than 200 attendees from more than 25 countries. Read More

Shpresa Delija, ELTA Albania

Leadership in ELTA Albania has been the key issue since its foundation in 2002. It was founded by a small group of English teachers, who later gathered a great number of teachers and student teachers. This article highlights the fact that a SMART leadership provides teachers with strong beliefs, trust, and attitudes toward ELTA Albania Association, hence increasing the membership at large. The article will showcase how ELTA Albania developed SMART leadership especially by approaching young teachers and student teachers to ELTA Albania. Read More

Lisa LeebhofETAI, English Teacher's Association of Israel, ETAI Vice-Chair, Israel

Maria Ammar, Intermountain TESOL (ITESOL), Salt Lake Community College, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

In 2020, Intermountain TESOL (ITESOL) experienced a year of change, making an effort to adapt to meet the needs of its members and community. The changes that were made has helped ITESOL grow as an organization and improve its approaches to supporting its members. Read More

Isaac Willis Larison, Marshall University - Literacy Education Program Faculty and Current President of WV TESOL. South Charleston, West Virginia, USA

The global pandemic and national shutdown of 2020-2021 disrupted our conference scheduled for March 2020. Like many other educational conferences, we postponed the conference, returned the registration fees, and hoped for the best. We will hold the conference this year in a virtual format. We have stayed with our theme from 2020, “Culture and Identity in the English Language Classroom,” contacted those who were slated to present, and found a new date for 2021. We are a small but dynamic affiliate of TESOL and our yearly conference is a valuable opportunity for graduate students, Pre-K – 12 teachers, adult educators, university faculty, and other TESOL professionals throughout the state and Appalachian Region to gather and explore, research, content, and opportunities for practitioners in our field of study. This year, our conference will be held on Saturday, April 17. Participants will be able to choose from prerecorded sessions and synchronous presentations. For more information about the conference visit: https://www.tesolwv.org/2021-conference. Come Join Us! Read More

Florentina de la Cruz de Pelaez, President - Peru TESOL Association, Trujillo, La Libertad, Peru

Peru TESOL Association has held an annual conference for more than a quarter-century. What happened for our 28th conference during the pandemic year is a testimony to the collaboration of conference planners, valued presenters, a talented webmaster, and our loyal membership who did not want to miss out on this annual event. Read More

Didi Sukyadi, TEFLIN, The Association for the Teaching of English in Indonesia,Indonesia

The Association for the Teaching of English in Indonesia is committed to teacher training, education, and professional development in ELT through various programs, including international conferences, workshops, and seminars, and book and journal publications. Read More

Manana Rusieshvili, English Teachers' Association of Georgia (ETAG), President of ETAG, Tbilisi, Georgia

This article describes the challenges the pandemic brought to the English Teachers’ Association of Georgia (ETAG) and the innovative ways to cooperate with teachers online. Read More

LeighAnn Matthews, NJTESOL/NJBE, New Jersey, USA

New Jersey Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages/New Jersey Bilingual Educators (NJTESOL/NJBE) is very excited to share with you what we have been up to since August 2020 when we prepared for another school year here in New Jersey. We have created two new subcommittees within our organization. We are proud of the important work that we have been doing and promoting as an organization. Read More

PennTESOL-East is beginning a series of monthly conversations with selected members of the affiliate. The conversations will provide a forum for the exchange of ideas.

PennTESOL-East is beginning a series of monthly conversations with selected members of the affiliate. The conversations will provide a forum for the exchange of ideas. Read More

Bridget Schvarcz, English Teachers' Association of Israel (ETAI), Chair of the English Teachers' Association of Israel, Israel

This article describes ways in which we can take advantage of the visual display of languages in the public space for raising students’ awareness of patterns in a language in the environment around them thereby helping them to become more conscious young citizens with a special focus on exploring multiculturalism mirrored by the linguistic landscape of Israel. Read More

Erin Henriksen, English Teachers' Association of Israel (ETAI), Lecturer in English at The David Yellin Academic College of Education in Jerusalem, Israel

I tell the pre-service English teachers in my courses to "put up their educational antennae." I want them to notice language - vocabulary, grammar patterns, idioms, spelling rules, and texts - and think about how to teach it. This year, our educational antennae have been tuned to helping students learn despite the pandemic. The language we use to describe the Covid-19 crisis also reflects issues we need to grapple with as teachers. I would like to share a few metaphors addressing these perennial educational challenges. Read More