Dear ICIS friends,

This special issue of InterCom is our preconvention issue, in anticipation of the TESOL 2019 International Convention in Atlanta, Georgia.

We are pleased to begin this issue with a feature article based on a TESOL 2018 presentation related to intercultural communication. Jessie Hutchinson Curtis and Christelle Palpacuer Lee from Rutgers University share preservice teachers’ insights from their interactions with adult English learners in a community-based intercultural communication program, Conversation Café. In this learning context, these preservice teachers discovered how conversations about culture, language, knowledge, and power can be interwoven with topics like race, privilege, and identity, thereby taking participants to the edges of their comfort zones. The findings of this study reveal that creating spaces for intercultural dialogue not only fosters an inclusive community of practice but also mobilizes these teachers to reimagine themselves as change agents in education.

Next, Tabitha Kidwell, a doctoral candidate in applied linguistics and language education at the University of Maryland, College Park, reviews two new books that are of particular interest to the Intercultural Communication Interest Section (ICIS). Both books address the growing demand for practical models and recommendations for implanting intercultural learning to a range of learners. Tabitha takes us on a tour of Teaching Intercultural Competence Across the Age Range: From Theory to Practice (edited by Manuela Wagner, Dorie Conlon Perugini, and Michael Byram) and From Principles to Practice in Education for Intercultural Citizenship (edited by Michael Byram, Irina Golubeva, Han Hui, and Manuela Wagner). Although these volumes offer a glimpse into integrating meaningful intercultural and global citizenship content within diverse educational settings, more research needs to uncover intercultural relationships and intercultural conflict in lower resourced settings where teachers might not have access to resources and/or expertise.

In addition to these scholarly contributions by Curtis, Palpacuer Lee, and Kidwell, we would like to draw attention to several special panels and InterSection sessions in the strand of Culture and Intercultural Communication at TESOL 2019 in Atlanta. Following are the titles and their abstracts, including the dates and times of the sessions.

1. Assessment of Intercultural Competence (InterSection with ICIS, Teacher Education IS, and Assessment PLN)

This three-member panel targets the assessment of intercultural competence, involving teacher education. The first panelist will base her approach on Mezirow’s transformative learning theory, the second will approach assessment using Deardorff’s Process Model, and the third panelist will interactively present the survey tool Intercultural Effectiveness Scale.

Date: Friday, 15 March, 11:30 am–1:15 pm; Georgia World Congress Center, Room A304

Presenters: Roxanna Senyshyn, Ramin Yazdanpanah, Lynn Diaz-Rico

2. Reflexive Practice in Intercultural Learning: Four Views (Academic session for ICIS)

This panel is inspired by a growing recognition of the value that reflexivity adds to language teaching in the context of intercultural communication. The four speakers address reflexivity as 1) a strengthening practice in research, 2) a transformative intercultural learning, 3) a challenging of concepts, and 4) a contextualized practice.

Date: Thursday, 14 March, 3 pm–4:45 pm; Georgia World Congress Center, Room A309

Presenters: Roxanna Senyshyn, Amy Alice Chastain, Barbara Lapornik, and Natalia Balyasnikova

3. Intercultural Communication and Competence Education Models in the EFL Context (InterSection with EFLIS and ICIS)

Teaching EFL goes beyond the linguistic competence to include intercultural communication competence (ICC). Curriculum design, pedagogy, and assessment are integral parts of this teaching process. In this presentation, the presenters explore different models of integrating ICC in teaching English in Colombia, Canada, Vietnam, and South Korea.

Date: Thursday, 14 March, 9:30 am–11:15 am; Georgia World Congress Center, Room A303

Presenters: Shahid Abrar-ul-Hassan, Mauricio Arango, Thao Quoc Tran, and Tom Randolph

These studies and presentations selected in this issue have expanded the intercultural communication focus on the dichotomy between native and nonnative speakers of English by exploring identity-oriented, reflexive, multicontextual approaches and critical classroom pedagogies. Through cross-context partnerships and learning communities, these value-laden, dynamic, and theoretically and pedagogically sound frameworks can liberate ongoing, systematic meaning-making and action-driven conversations about critical multilingual and intercultural communication across diverse TESOL settings (e.g., teacher training programs, K–12, online language contexts).

With such a stellar line-up of presentations, we hope that we will see you at TESOL 2019 in Atlanta! If your schedule permits, please join us for the ICIS Social at Glenn’s Kitchen on Wednesday, March 13, 2019, starting at 7:00 p.m. Due to the restaurant’s policy of not splitting checks for large groups, please bring cash to facilitate payment.

If you haven’t already joined our Facebook community, please do so. We warmly welcome all to participate in our community and will be posting information about in-person gatherings at the convention via our social media channels. When it comes to intercultural communication, the more, the merrier!

All good things,

Sharon Tjaden-Glass

Andrea Enikő Lypka

Andrea Enikő Lypka is an English for academic purposes faculty and a PhD candidate in the Second Language Acquisition and Instructional Technology Program at the University of South Florida. Her research interests include intercultural communication, learner identity, and community-academic partnerships.