Dear ALIS Members,

Greetings! It is my pleasure to welcome you all to ALIS and thank you for your continuous support. I am sure you are all as excited as I am about our upcoming convention in Toronto. I have no doubt that we will have a lot of fun just like we did in Portland last year. Please join me in acknowledging with great appreciation all the wonderful things our current chair, Dr. Hayriye Kayi-Aydar, and past chair, Dr. Eli Hinkel, have done and continue to do for ALIS.

Per my charge as the incoming chair, I am very happy to report that ALIS has one Academic Session and one InterSection ready for the 2015 convention. As you might know, the Academic Sessions organized by the Interest Sections are one of the highlights of the conference. These panel presentations address topics of current relevance to TESOL communities and enable respected experts to contribute to the program. The Academic Session, which will address a very hot topic in applied linguistics, L2 motivational self-concept in language learning, will feature leading scholars in the field (e.g., Zoltan Dornyei). This session is scheduled for Thursday, March 26, 9:30–11:15 a.m. The InterSection is going to be a collaborative session with the Teacher Education Interest Section and will embark on another very vital and interesting topic: the teaching and learning of foreign languages and ESL in K–12 schools in the United States. Featuring world-renowned scholars in the field (e.g., Elaine Horwitz), this session will also address issues of great importance related to L2 teacher education in the United States (Where are we? Where are we heading?). I truly hope that you can all join us at these wonderful sessions!

As for my goals for ALIS as the incoming chair, building on what our current chair, Dr. Kayi-Aydar, has been doing, I plan to work on further strengthening communication and networking opportunities amongst the ALIS members while also reaching out to more TESOL members to consider ALIS as their primary membership group. In addition, I will try to promote ALIS at other academic venues (e.g., AERA) to recruit more members and reviewers. While I will seek support and guidance from our current and past chairs in this process, I welcome suggestions from any ALIS member as well.

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or suggestions. I look forward to seeing you all at the ALIS Academic Session and the InterSection in Toronto.

Nihat Polat