Greetings everyone! Hope you are all enjoying this semester, Fall or Spring, depending on where you are in the world! Here in Miami, Florida, U.S., it’s been particularly hot and sunny lately. After a really busy summer, we are back at full swing at the university. In this short letter, I will describe some of the past affiliate events in which I have participated since becoming TESOL President in March 2018.

The TESOL Affiliate Speaker Program took me to various places. My first stop was beautiful Croatia for the HUPE (Croatian Association of Teachers of English) Conference. It was in an amazing area in Croatia, called Poreč, on the coast. I am scheduled this Fall to go to several U.S. affiliate conferences: WATESOL (Washington TESOL) in October; NYS TESOL (New York State TESOL) in November; and finally to my home state affiliate CATESOL (California TESOL) in December. I am really excited about my upcoming trips. For my last affiliate speaker commitment, I am going to participate in TESOL Greece’s 40th anniversary. I am super excited about all of these events and look forward to connecting to affiliates through this amazing program. Please check out a blog post I wrote when I rotated off the Board of Directors when I first served as a member (2013-2016) on the benefits of the Affiliate Speaker Program for both the affiliate and the board member.

In addition to the visits afforded by the affiliate speaker program, I participated in conferences, TESOL symposia and academies in my role as President. In early May, I attended the TESOL Symposium The Global Citizen and New Technologies in Vancouver, Canada, and participated in the BC TEAL (The Association of British Columbia Teachers of English as an Additional Language) conference, which were both great events. I also presented a plenary address at Sunshine State TESOL in Florida, USA in mid-May. In addition, I had the incredible opportunity to attend the Asia TEFL conference in Macau, S.A.R., China in June. It was my first time in Asia, and I definitely would love to return. Though Asia TEFL is not a TESOL affiliate, many TESOL affiliates are members of Asia TEFL, so I was able to see and connect with many TESOL leaders and members, such as KOTESOL (Korea TESOL), Thailand TESOL, JALT (The Japan Association for Language Teaching) and others. Soon after my trip to Macau, I went to Honduras for the TESOL Academy “Empowering TESOL Communities Through Collaboration” and HELTA (Honduran English Language Teachers Association) convention. I connected with many Latin-American TESOL affiliates there and presented both at the Academy and the convention. What an incredible six months it has been!!!

I will end with a comment around the title of this letter: Developing Global Presence and Connectivity and Sharing Knowledge and Expertise with Affiliates. “Global Presence and Connectivity” is Outcome 1 and “Knowledge and Expertise” is Outcome 2 in TESOL’s new strategic plan (2018-2021). In the past six months, I have been able to witness the embodiment of these outcomes in practice in all of these events - which have demonstrated the commitment and passion that TESOL educators have for their associations, their fellow teachers, and their students. I am so honored to be part of such an amazing community of teachers, leaders, and scholars.

I hope to see you in Atlanta for TESOL’s International Convention & English Language Expo, March 12-15, 2019!

Warm regards,

Luciana C. de Oliveira