By the (Western Hemisphere) Fall/Autumn of 2022, current President-Elect Debra Suarez had joined the discussions, and after more zoom calls, the points of connectedness of different aspects of LiLE had grown up to a potential 10,000 or so! That number came from identifying around 100 aspects of LiLE, each of which could, technically, be connected to every other aspect, just as nothing we do as teachers, learners, or leaders is done in isolation. That number of potential points of connectedness alone, in and of itself, helped to answer questions such as: What do leaders do well, and why do some fail to lead well? What makes leadership (so) difficult? What makes leading in language education different from other leadership domains? To make the details more manageable, we pored over our Miro portrait, after which, we color-coded and grouped together related areas, which allowed us to identify overarching categories. From that poring, we identified twelve aspects of LiLE that can be worked on, as our goal is not to create another theoretical model of leadership of the kind found in MBA textbooks, but to create something that busy classroom language teachers can apply, if they are already in or preparing to take on LiLE roles.

After a year of discussions, drawings, and deliberations, we three found ourselves in Room B115 of the Oregon Convention Centre on the last day of the TESOL 2023 Convention (March 24), presenting a 45-minute session titled "Leadership in Language Education: What Leaders Need to Know," (ID 680). To our pleasant surprise, the room, which holds a maximum of around 50 people, was full (apart from some of the always-empty front-row seats!) with attendees and participants standing at the back. After the many hours of preparation, collaboration, and PPT co-creation, the 45-minutes seemed to fly by, as the Olde English saying goes, “in the blink of an eye” leaving us to wonder what, if anything, happens after a convention presentation wraps-up? In our case, we offer this brief summary of the main points from our presentation as a way of ensuring that something tangible, concrete and, we hope, of practical use does happen after our presentation that Friday afternoon.

As you can see from the screenshot of our main PPT slide, we placed Instructional Context within the Geographic Space at the centre. While we may change the wording of the centre, as our thoughts on LiLE develop and grow, we wanted to stress the criticality of context (Curtis, 2017) and to highlight the fact that there can be no meaningful discussion of LiLE without acknowledging the place – the physical/online location – within which that leadership is taking place (Curtis, 2022; Reynolds, Dikilitaş & Close, 2022). Most of the 11 surrounding bubbles, revolving around the teaching-learning space/context, may be somewhat self-explanatory. For example, Organizational Culture and Values; Goals, Visions and Outcomes and Leadership Styles are concepts that many TESOLers will be familiar with. However, there are some bubbles that need some explanation and clarification. For example, Working with Different People, well ... everyone could claim to do that, as no two human beings are exactly alike (not even identical twins). However, we believe that, as international language educators, those who work in our field work with a significantly greater array of different people, from diverse languages, cultures, belief systems and parts of the world than our “mainstream” school/ university counterparts.

Likewise, our research (e.g., Curtis & de Jong, 2018) and our experiences lead us to believe that, although there has been a voluminous outpouring of MBA-type (course) books on Leadership Communication Styles, communication is at the heart of what every single language teacher and learner is working on, in every single language classroom around the world, every single day! Communication, therefore, is at the very centre of what we do, the raw material and the fabric from which we fashion our work, again, in ways that communication may not be in other non-language education fields. The revolving bubble, Teachers Who Lead and Leaders Who Teach, refers to a trajectory in which an experienced and successful language teacher finds themselves in a LiLE role, moving them away from the classroom. And typically, the more time we spend in such roles, the further away we become removed from the day-to-day classroom realities of teachers and learners. It is, then, essential that teacher-leaders stay connected to the classroom, as it is there where the consequences of their decisions will manifest themselves, and it is the teachers and learners in that classroom who will be most directly impacted by such decision-making. Too many leaders are not adequately and directly affected by their decisions, as they trickle down the chain of command, resulting in damagingly poor decision-making (Curtis, 2022).

Lastly, we also highlighted the fact that Volunteer Leadership is markedly different in our field than, for example, the privately-owned, for-profit corporations. And while it would be an over-simplification to say, for example, “They do it for profit, we do it for love,” there are nevertheless some fundamental, motivational differences between those two kinds of leadership (Reynolds, Dikilitaş & Close, 2022), which can make such corporate leadership models largely irrelevant to us and our work as volunteer leaders. Instead, we need to develop models that are created by and for the language teacher-leaders, present and future, within TESOL, among TESOL Affiliates (Curtis, 2020), and at every level of any teacher association.

References

Curtis, A. (2017). Methods and Methodologies for Language Teaching: The Centrality of Context. London, UK: Bloomsbury. https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/methods-and-methodologies-for-language-teaching-9781137407351/

Curtis, A. (2020). Equity and diversity in leadership in TESOL. TESOL Affiliate News:

http://newsmanager.commpartners.com/tesolalc/issues/2020-04-10/4.html

Curtis, A. (Ed.). (2022). Reflecting on Leadership in Language Education. Equinox Press (UK): https://www.equinoxpub.com/home/reflecting-leadership/

Curtis, A, & de Jong, E. (2018). Formalizing language teacher association leadership development. In A., Elsheikh A., C., Coombe C., & O., Effiong O. (Eds.) The Role of Language Teacher Associations in Professional Development. Second Language Learning and Teaching (pp. 241-253). Springer, Cham, Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-00967-0_18

Perminova, M. (20 March, 2023). What is Miro? https://help.miro.com/hc/en-us/articles/360017730533-What-is-Miro-

Reynold, K.A., Curtis, A. & Suarez, D. (24 March, 2023). What Leaders Need to Know. Presentation at TESOL International Convention, Portland, OR.

Reynolds, K.M., Dikilitaş, K., & Close, S. (2022). Introduction to TESOL: Becoming a language teaching professional. Wiley.

 

Dr. Andy Curtis received his Ph.D. in International Education from the University of York, England. From 2015 to 2016, Dr. Andy Curtis served as the 50th President of TESOL International Association. He has (co)authored and (co)edited 200 publications, presented to 50,000 language educators in 100 countries, and his work has been read by 100,000 language educators in 150 countries. He is based in Ontario, Canada, from where he works with language education organizations worldwide.

Dr. Kate Mastruserio Reynolds is a Professor of TESOL/Literacy at Central Washington University. She has taught educators in the US and abroad at universities and public-school districts and ESL/EFL in elementary, middle schools and universities various in contexts. Dr. Reynolds’ publications include Introduction to TESOL: Becoming a Language Teaching Professional and Research Methods in Language Teaching and Learning: A Practical Guide. In 2022, she was inducted onto the TESOL International Association’s Board of Directors.