In February 2021, the ICIS launched a new space for current doctoral students to share their work in progress with the greater TESOL community and beyond. After ICIS posted a call for proposals, ICIS selected five students from around the world to share a five-minute (or less) overview of their current research projects and how their work relates to intercultural communicative competence (ICC). The platform, hosted by ICIS and organized by Co-Chairs Drs. Natalia Balyasnikova and Jennifer Lacroix, provided a space for doctoral students to practice the art of boiling down their work into a short, sharp hit.

Participants and their research:

• Halima Boualli: Designing an intercultural-based syllabus to enhance EFL learners’ intercultural communicative competence: The case of first year majors at Constantine University
• Amina Douidi: Essentialism in the language classroom
• Nichole McVeigh: Integrating conflict resolution skills in the English classroom: Building peace through communication
• Jill Pagels: What a focused research study in second language writing reveals about culture
• Fabiana Stalknaker: Foreign language speaking anxiety and the online learner

ICIS has an open call for their next Lightning Talk series for doctoral students to share emerging trends in ICC. ICIS will post another call later this fall for practitioners to share their practical ICC tips in the same format. Next Lightning Talk: Friday, September 24, 2021 at 12pm ET. Registration information to follow in August.