Dear SLWIS members,

It is hard to believe that the TESOL 2012 Convention in Philadelphia is only a few short weeks away. Hopefully, you will be able to attend this year’s convention and participate in as many SLWIS sessions as possible. Our interest section will have a very strong presence at the convention again this year. We received 171 proposals, which earned us 42 spots on the program, so you should easily be able to find several sessions of interest to you. Thank you to everybody who sent in proposals to SLWIS and to those who took time to help read the proposals.

In addition to the regular sessions, we also have four exciting special sessions this year, including the customary Academic Session and three InterSections. Elsewhere in this issue, Lisya Seloni, 2011-2012 chair-elect, has provided more information about the times, contents, and presenters for these sessions. I hope to see you there. Please also attend our open meeting on Thursday evening, March 29. Your participation is highly valued and important for the continued development of SLWIS. The consistently strong member attendance and engagement at this meeting on an annual basis are among the reasons that we have become a successful interest section. We will have a chance to reconnect with old members and welcome new ones. We will look ahead to next year’s convention in Dallas, brainstorm proposal topics, and hopefully forge new collaborations. Also, we will introduce a new chair-elect (Gena Bennett) and three new steering committee members (Lilian Mina, Ryan Miller and Tony Silva).  Let me take this opportunity to thank everybody who ran for a leadership position. After the open meeting, I hope you will all join us for our annual social event at a location yet to be determined.

See SLWIS Special Sessions and Sessions Related to Second Language Writing for more details.

I am very happy to report that after much pressure from SLWIS and a few other interest sections, this year’s convention will bring back the individual interest section booths. You may recall that last year TESOL got rid of the individual booths and replaced them with two shared ones so each interest section was able to sign up for only a few hours during the entire convention. Our leadership group is delighted to again have a continued presence in the exhibit area where we can network with each other, distribute information about our interest section and conference sessions, and recruit new members. Let me thank all the members who have signed up to staff the booth this year—further evidence, if we needed more, of our committed members. Please stop by and visit our booth. And, if you’d like to sign up for staffing the booth, please contact me at the e-mail above.

After the open meeting in Philadelphia, my term as SLWIS chair will come to an end, and current Chair-Elect Lisya Seloni will take over. It has been a pleasure and an honor for me to serve as chair over this past year, and I would like to thank everybody else who is part of the SLWIS leadership team, as well as all our members, for their continued support. Here’s to another successful TESOL convention for SLWIS!

I am looking forward to seeing you all in Philadelphia!

Ditlev