|
Dear Colleagues,
We survived the fall semester! I know that through conversations with many of you, things have been very busy and stressful. I hope that you will be able to take some time to rest during your break; you deserve it! I'd like to take a few minutes to highlight how our ITA-IS has been active during this busy time.
Hopefully, you were able to take a few minutes to vote during our ITA-IS steering committee election that was held from the end of November to early December. I thank each of you for voting during this important election. Your vote communicates to TESOL that we are an active interest section. We may be small, but we are mighty! If you did not receive a ballot for the election in your inbox, please make sure that your TESOL membership is active and that you are marked as a “member” of our ITA interest section in MyTESOL for the next election cycle.
The 2022 TESOL convention in Pittsburgh, PA is approaching! There is a hybrid option for those who would like to attend virtually. A fellow member asked me what the differences would be between the two as they were trying to weigh the value of attending the convention in-person. The in-person convention will have 900 sessions and the virtual convention will have 200 pre-recorded sessions with some selected live recordings. The live recordings include the plenary sessions. I will be getting a list soon from the convention coordinator about ITA-related sessions that were accepted. I will send out that list on our respective listservs sometime in December or January. If you were accepted to present, either in-person or virtually, could you email me the information about your presentation at StacyS@psu.edu? This will help me cross reference the list in case a session wasn’t given to me from the convention coordinator.
This fall, our interest section has been busy with engaging our ITA-IS members. Kayla Landers, our community events coordinator, successfully hosted our first webinar of the season. Jonathan Schmidgall presented on “Evaluating outcomes of ITA assessments.” During the live Q & A discussion, many of you had some great questions. If you didn’t get an opportunity to see his presentation, please find it on our YouTube channel: ITA IS TESOL, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ6DGkSBSyGbz-ob6_TUQ1A. Please subscribe to our channel if you haven’t already. We will continue to share pre-recorded presentations for our upcoming webinars.
Our ITA virtual work group meetings have been helpful as many of our members are navigating similar issues. I commend all of you for being a supportive professional network for each other. We wouldn’t be who we are without all your support!
As always, I would like to thank our newsletter editors, James Coda and Ekaterina Arshavskaya, for putting together this edition. Their work helps us continue to stay engaged with each other. We are grateful for your service to our IS!
Have a wonderful holiday and happy new year!
Best,
Stacy Suhadolc | 
