Dear Colleagues and Affiliate Leaders,

I hope this finds you safe and well. For those of you who are veterans in your organization, you probably remember me from a lifetime ago. I retired from the TESOL International Association in 2017 and returned in March 2020 on a part-time, temporary basis. It is wonderful to reconnect with all of you! Like many of you, the staff at TESOL International Association has been working from home during COVID-19. They successfully launched virtual events, courses and certificate programs.

COVID-19 has only been one piece of the disruption that has affected many of us this year. It has certainly directly affected our professional lives and the lives of our members. It may also have personally touched our families and friends. But we have witnessed other difficult circumstances that have surfaced in many parts of the world. Police brutality, racial discrimination, anti-immigrant and anti-refugee sentiment, isolationism, and xenophobic policies have affected our members and the students they serve in various contexts. As we enter the second half of 2020, I often struggle to find meaning in the current situation and hope in the future. Perhaps you feel the same way.

Yet, I have been so inspired by your leadership in these challenging times! I was fortunate to attend several online meetings of Affiliate leaders organized by the Affiliate Network Professional Council during my first week back at TESOL. I was moved by the resilience, collaboration, and creativity that transpired during those meetings. As we all navigate these uncertain times, you have demonstrated that nothing can take down a TESOLer! On behalf of the TESOL International Association, I am very proud to be part of our strong network of professionals.

I was also very happy to see Affiliates represented among the over 300 participants and 23 presenters at the first virtual TESOL Advocacy and Policy Summit in June. Broadening our advocacy efforts beyond the United States has been a long-standing goal of the Association. Seeing so many new English language teachers from around the world at our virtual event was extremely rewarding. But this is just the first step. We want to hear more from you about ways TESOL International Association can help you improve English language policies in your own contexts. We want to work with you to improve working conditions for your members and their students.

Although we weren’t able to gather in Denver, we were pleased that so many of you participated in the TESOL Virtual Convention on 16-18 July! Even though we are all getting a bit fatigued in the virtual environment that has become our new reality, I hope the event provided opportunities to learn and connect in a way that a Zoom meeting does not always enable us to do. As you now know, we will again meet virtually in 2021, due to the continued COVID-19 pandemic and we hope to offer an equally engaging and inspiring experience for participants from around the globe.

Thanks to our internal resilience and a spirit of cooperation, we have all adjusted to the challenges we have faced this year. I hope we can continue to fulfill our respective organizational missions and common goals of serving English language professionals worldwide. We are TESOL strong. This quote by French author Albert Camus is a powerful reminder that obstacles challenge us to find and celebrate our strength: “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” (1953. Return to Tipasa)

Rosa Aronson
Interim Executive Director
TESOL International Association