Cynthia DeRoma, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA

Dear colleagues,

Undoubtedly the highlight of the year to me so far has been the chance to attend the TESOL Convention in person and see or meet so many ITA-ISers. For the first time, we had a hybrid conference that gave many people the opportunity to participate despite their inability or unwillingness to travel. However, although the vast majority of participants were virtual, most of the action took place in person. I would like to say a special thank you to our past chair Stacy Suhadolc and others who used their Zoom rooms to share meetings and help bridge the distance.

It looks as if the hybrid format is the future of TESOL conventions. This of course brings a number of challenges, not all of which are technology-related. In the leadership forum that took place during the convention, there was a brief discussion about the impact to TESOL if the number of virtual participants continues to supersede that of in-person attendees. For example, would it still make sense to use large and costly convention centers? How does it change the nature of networking? The ability to participate virtually makes the convention more accessible, especially to non-US members, but it is not truly equitable when the lower price for virtual participation also means fewer offerings. Would this be creating two different “classes” or participants? These are not easy questions to answer, but they are essential in thinking about how TESOL can continue to expand its high-quality offerings to the greatest number of professionals without prohibitive costs.

TESOL used to be a heavily convention-based organization, and it is now striving to remain relevant the whole year with an initiative they are calling TESOL 365. To those of us who are active in an Interest Section like ours, this is no news. Even before the pandemic, our group has been active outside the annual convention, especially with the creation of the Community Events Organizer position and all the fantastic webinars that Katya Arshavskaya, Kayla Landers, and now James Coda have put together since. We have also managed to get together to discuss our work and socialize, thanks to the efforts of many of our members. We had been ITA-IS 365 long before TESOL 365!

In this year’s convention, we had about 20 sessions that identified ITAs as their setting. In our Academic and InterSection sessions, we were invited to reflect on our role as ITA practitioners in truly advocating for our students, particularly in acknowledging that communication, intelligibility, and comprehensibility involve not only the producers of the language, but their audiences as well. We learned more about how these audiences’ biases and experiences can have a strong effect on how ITAs are perceived, and what some of our peers are doing about it.

I am very excited about the rest of the year. Let’s continue to learn and share as always. And, of course, don’t forget to submit a proposal for the 2023 Convention!

Warm wishes,

Cynthia L. Z. DeRoma, PhD

Chair, ITA-IS