Did you know that the U.S. Peace Corps was founded 60 years ago today? On that day, 1 March 1961, a tradition of secular volunteerism to serve overseas was institutionalized in the United States and remains strong today. It also shapes us, TESOL, in several ways—a good number of our members are former Peace Corps Volunteers, the U.S. Peace Corps has been a partner in our work, and its approach to having a volunteer become a full-fledged member of the community where assigned aligns with our principles of knowing your learners and engaging and collaborating with others.

Learning the basics of the language and culture of a new country was at the core of the training that Peace Corps offered volunteers then and continues to offer now. How that teaching and learning process takes place has evolved over the years, however, in large part due to researchers and practitioners who are part of our English language teaching community. TESOL International Association is 55 years old now, founded in 1966, 5 years after the Peace Corps. The concept of volunteerism is also part of the very fabric of our association.

An effective organization has a clearly defined mission and the means to achieve it. Our mission is the following:

TESOL International Association advances the expertise of professionals who teach English to speakers of other languages in multilingual contexts worldwide. We accomplish this through professional learning, research, standards, and advocacy.

We are successful in this mission as a result of the hard work, knowledge, and dedication of our volunteer members and our staff. We apply research on second language learning, pedagogy, assessment, and cross-cultural communication to our classrooms. We adhere to high-quality standards and levels of professionalism. We maintain our unswerving advocacy for our learners, programs, schools, and colleagues.

We are all familiar with the expression, “It takes a village to raise a child.” When you work in the international education space, this message rings particularly true. Successful organizations often partner with like-minded others to create a cohesive, integrated approach within the multilingual contexts. We may work in overlapping or complementary spaces, but when TESOL chooses a partner, we seek one that shares our core values, including respect for “equity, diversity, multilingualism, multiculturalism, and individuals’ language rights” and integrity guided by “ethical and transparent action.”

Some of our partners have opened new audiences to our association, like China Daily 21st Century English Education Media, which holds the annual TESOL Assembly for 1,000–2,000 English teachers in China, and ICPNA (El Instituto Cultural Peruano Norteamericano), the binational center in Peru that sponsored TESOL professional learning courses for more than 1,600 K–12 teachers over the past 2 years. We currently work with American Councils for International Education and the Department of State in collaboration with Uzbekistan Ministry of Education on a grant to improve the English language teaching skills of public school teachers there, and recently we launched our TESOL Core Certificate Program in India through the Regional English Language Office of the U.S. Embassy and the Delhi Ministry of Education. In all these cases, educators in these programs receive TESOL memberships, too.

Other partners bring new technologies and opportunities for us to grow as professionals. VIPKid, for example, brought online English language learning to young learners even before the pandemic closed schools, and it has been exploring artificial intelligence (AI) applications to language education. The TEAL Charitable Foundation, an off-shoot of our affiliate in Canada, BC TEAL (The Association of British Columbia Teachers of English as an Additional Language), presented a webinar in February that offered ideas for fundraising for awards and scholarships.

In some cases, our members inform us about the work of groups that could be potential partners in the future. Many in our Refugee Concerns Interest Section, for example, connect with international refugee service organizations, like UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) and IRC (International Rescue Committee), as well as with resettlement agencies like the Canadian Council for Refugees, Hebrew Immigration Aid Society, Ethiopian Community Development Council, Swedish Migration Agency, and others. These groups provide education and health services in international camps before refugees transit to their new homes in countries around the world and/or act as cultural informants for the social service and school agencies in those new locations. TESOL’s Computer-Assisted Language Learning Interest Section members have identified educational technology groups that might also collaborate with us in the online language learning space that is growing every day.

We entered our profession, many of us, with a purpose in mind. We love language teaching and exploring new cultures. We want to help others be successful in life. We have a tradition of volunteering and seeking out partnerships. All of these interests and attributes make TESOL strong. Let’s celebrate TESOL’s 55th birthday and the U.S. Peace Corps’ 60th by continuing to engage and serve.

Deborah J. Short
Returned Peace Corps Volunteer, DR Congo (formerly Zaire), 1981–1984
President, TESOL International Association, 2020–2021

Deborah J. Short, PhD, is TESOL International Association president (2020–2021). She directs Academic Language Research & Training, LLC and provides professional development on academic literacy, content-based ESL, and sheltered instruction worldwide. She has led numerous research projects related to English learner education, codeveloped the SIOP Model, and served as series editor for several 6 Principles books.