Dear ALIS Family,

As the chair-elect of the ALIS Interest Section for 2014–2015, I offer my very best wishes for the new year. Once again, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our past and present chairs (Professors Eli Hinkel and Hayriye Kayi-Aydar) and the ALIS members for their many contributions to the TESOL family. I also would like to invite all TESOL members and convention attendees to select our wonderful interest section as their primary IS within TESOL.

I’d like to remind the ALIS members and convention attendees that we have one academic session and one InterSection scheduled for the 2015 convention. Our academic session focuses on a very interesting topic that is gaining more and more attention every day in applied linguistics. This session is scheduled for Thursday, 26 March 2015, at 9:30 am in room 104D at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. It is entitled “L2 Motivational Self-Concept in Language Learning” and features excellent scholars like Zoltán Dörnyei, Kata Csizér, and Michael Magid. Interesting to note that all of our panelists have published books on this very topic just this year. Both of these books were published by Multilingual Matters. Zoltán (with Alastair Henry and Peter MacIntyre) published a book entitled Motivational Dynamics in Language Learning. The title of Kata’s and Michael’s book is The Impact of Self-Concept on Language Learning.

The InterSection is going to be a collaborative session with the Teacher Education Interest Section and focuses on another very interesting topic; the session is titled “Perspectives on SLA Content, Common-Core, Self-Efficacy in L2 Teacher Education.” The panelists of this section also include world-renowned scholars like Elaine Horwitz, Elaine Tarone, Tammy Gregersen, and Rebecca Callahan. I’d like to thank Dr. Laura Baecher, the chair-elect of the Teacher Education Interest Section, for her help to bring these wonderful scholars together to tackle this very timely and important topic. The session has been scheduled for Friday, 27 March 2015, at 9:30 am in room 103A at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

I am very excited about being a part of these wonderful activities and the great ALIS and TESOL family.

See you all in Toronto in March!

Nihat