Greetings Fellow ALISers!

Welcome to our first issue of 2015! Most of this newsletter is dedicated to preparing for the upcoming TESOL convention in Toronto, Canada; but before we begin, we'd like to announce a change in leadership for the ALIS newsletter. Jana Moore is stepping down as coeditor of AL Forum after serving 4 years, with Monika Ekiert stepping in. You can read more in the ABOUT THIS COMMUNITY section.

For those of you heading to Toronto, please consider attending the Applied Linguistics Interest Section Open Meeting. It will be held 5 pm–6:30 pm on Thursday, 26 March, in Room 201D. Come lend your voice to ALIS.

Make sure to read the update from our incoming chair, Nihat Polat. He provides details on the ALIS academic session and InterSection at the upcoming convention. These sessions look to spark thought-provoking discussion on two topical subjects.

In this issue are six short articles from upcoming presentations in Toronto. Each of the articles comes from applied linguistics presentations that will take place in Toronto, and are meant to give you a glimpse of the fantastic lineup TESOL has been working on for the convention.

The first article, by Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig and Sabrina Mossman, entitled “Working With Corpora: Input for the Teaching of Pragmatic Routines,” focuses on using corpora to help recognize different pragmatic routines and develop lessons for teaching these routines. The next article, by Jiyun Kim, entitled “Developing a Conceptual Understanding of Sarcasm Through Concept-Based Instruction,” presents a new model for teaching sarcasm in the classroom. In the next article, “Collocations: Cracking the Code,”Olga Makinina discusses the importance of collocations for English learners.

“Crossing Borders: Hybrid Identities Among a New Generation of English Teachers,” by Irasema Mora Pablo, M. Martha Lengeling, and Troy Crawford, presents a new type of English teacher found in Mexico and how this new type impacts teaching. The next article, by Rick Romanko, entitled “The Vocabulary Demands of American and British Popular Songs,” investigates the lexical demands of popular songs on language learners. In the final article, “Task-Based Instruction: Building Bridges From Classroom to Real Life,” Shawna Williams discusses task-based instruction and incorporating these tasks into the classroom.

We hope you enjoy these articles and all the other information that can be found in this issue, and we look forward to seeing you in Toronto!

Ben, Monika, and Jana