Affiliate News - 06/09/2023 (Plain Text Version)
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LEADERSHIP UPDATES FACILITATING CONNECTIONS, NETWORKING, AND SHARING AMONG TESOL AFFILIATES: SUCCESSES AND CHALLENGES
In November 2022, I began my role as Chair of the Affiliate Network Professional Council (ANPC) after serving the council as a member and incoming chair for three years. During my first meeting as Chair, other council members and I shared our thoughts on the role of the council. A common theme emerged: facilitating connections, networking, and sharing among affiliates. This captures perfectly what the ANPC has been doing and striving to do better to advance TESOL International Association's strategic directions and priorities. We are a group of 9-10 volunteers with experience serving a local Affiliate or a teacher association in a leadership position and committed to bringing Affiliates together for collaboration. With volunteers rotating on and off every year, we continue to work within the framework laid out by the previous Council and innovate along the way. There are successes, challenges, and continuous efforts to improve programs already in place and create new ones. Based on my observations and reflections on the work of the Council in the past three and a half years, initiatives that have been more successful in bringing affiliates together include bi-monthly webinars, conference events, and newsletter publications. Energy, engagement, and appreciation are apparent in many events organized by the ANPC in 2020, 2021, 2022, and now 2023 during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. One example was the three-day Affiliate Event organized in July 2020 where hundreds of participants attended over 20 sessions and logged off with words of appreciation: wonderful job, amazing work, kudos, wow, fantastic, and hard to say goodbye (see my analysis of the chat transcripts from this event in this blog post). Most recently, convention events in March 2023 in Portland and on the virtual platform attracted equally engaged leaders from all over the world. In addition, being in person, we enjoyed the warmth of handshakes, smiles, and hugs as well as the fun of making silly poses in group pictures. Our bi-monthly webinars, while having lower attendance, have been providing another way for Affiliate leaders and members to gather in a common space, thus facilitating new connections and strengthening existing ones. The Newsletter, on the other hand, makes an impact by publishing thoughtful reflections, stories, sharing of resources, and academic reviews of topics of interest to Affiliates. Just as a book is a gift that can be opened many times, an article published is something that can be shared and read again and again, creating a more lasting impact. The ANPC has been publishing two issues a year with contributions from both the TESOL leadership and Affiliates from all over the world. In this issue, you'll find articles about diverse topics, including leadership in language education (Curtis & Reynolds, 2023); the TESOL spirit (Suarez, 2023); and thoughtful reflections and recommendations on membership, communication, event and conference organization, and affiliate journals (Decoteau, Kostka & McGovern, 2023; Douglas, 2023; Land, 2023; Ourthe-Cabele, 2023; Schvarcz, 2023). Other articles share experience in collaborating among TESOL Affiliates and teacher associations (Ilienko & Tsehelska, 2023; Khan, 2023; Omara, 2023). Especially, Rubina Khan from Bangladesh English Language Teacher Assocation (BELTA) shares a successful materials development and professional development project called “Stories about Ourselves” in collaboration with a professor in Japan and Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT). Karen Newman from the ANPC shares a list of free and mostly-free resources that can be helpful to all teachers in seeking further professional development as well as language learning materials for their learners. Awanga and Phung (2023), on the other hand, report a small research project to identify the reasons why teachers in Cameroon hesitate to join language teacher associations (LTAs). MaryLynn Patton from TEXTESOL V shares good news about Past President Pearlie Lubin awarded Alumni Impact Award by the U.S. Department of State. A special contribution comes from the current President of TESOL Shelley Taylor, which reflects on the role of affiliates and the ANPC in realizing TESOL’s Strategic Direction (2022-25). However, other initiatives from the ANPC face more challenges to implement, including creating a resource library and running APAP (Affiliate Peer Advisory Program). With the new MyTESOL platform being launched, we’ve put the resource library idea on hold until we know where and how resources will be stored and shared. The challenges regarding APAP involve the difficulty in reaching affiliate leaders based on the email addresses on file. Acknowledging the challenges, I’d like to say the ANPC is reconsidering these initiatives and incorporating feedback we gathered during the Affiliate Assembly to make improvements and add new activities if possible. Some suggestions from Affiliates include:
The ANPC has shared these suggestions with TESOL and our liaison with the Board of Directors and will discuss them in our next meeting. We will certainly continue to work toward facilitating connections, networking, and sharing among affiliates. In the meantime, I hope you’ll stay connected with the ANPC and other Affiliates through MyTESOL, joining our next webinar in July, and sharing your experience through two MyTESOL listservs: Affiliate Leaders and Affiliate Network. Email any member of the ANPC if you have issues. If we can’t answer those questions, we’ll connect you with those who can. Finally, I’d like to acknowledge the hard work of the editorial team from the ANPC consisting of Marianela Ayub, Sarah Warfield, and myself as well as the support of Jeff Hutcheson and the TESOL’s office in bringing this issue of the Newsletter to you. Dr. Linh Phung is the Director of the English Language Program at Chatham University and Founder of Eduling. She has published in a variety of journals and publications in English language teaching. Her recent publications include Tug of Words (a picture book), IELTS Speaking Part 2, and Eduling Speak (a language learning app). |
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