Another year has come and gone, and here we are again gearing up for another exciting TESOL convention, this year in Toronto. I am excited to tell you all about this year’s academic and InterSection panels that we will be hosting.

This year for our academic panel, we have invited IS members to discuss gaming and language learning. The session, “Games in the Classroom: From Principle to Practice,” will look at gaming and language learning from the perspectives of a theorist, teacher trainer, teacher, and builder. The panelists will explore the research on games for language learning, discuss their use in the language classroom, and talk.

CALL-IS is also hosting in an InterSection panel with the Second Language Writing IS. The panel, “Automated Writing Evaluation: When Is It Right for Your Students?”, will address the challenges and opportunities facing instructors when integrating automated writing evaluation into the second language classroom.

Our members have also been invited to participate in a panel with the International Teaching Assistants IS called “Online Teaching and ITAs: What ITA Trainers Need to Know." The panel will explore how technology can be used to develop ITAs’ pronunciation and academic English skills and delve into what an online ITA course might look like.

All of the CALL-IS lead panels, along with several other sessions including our Hot Topics panels, Mobile Apps for Education, and our annual CALL-IS Open Meeting will be webcast live, so even if you are unable to make it to Toronto you can still follow along live wherever you are.

Stay up to date with all of our events and follow along by visiting our redesigned site. There you can learn more about all of the events we are hosting not only at the 2015 TESOL convention but all year long.

Whether you join us in person or online, we hope you enjoy what we’ve put together for this year’s convention.

Stephanie Korslund

Stephanie Korslund is director of the Language Studies Resource Center in the Department of World Languages and Cultures at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa. She is currently working on finishing her PhD in instructional technology with an emphasis on CALL at Ohio University and hopes to graduate in May of 2015. She and her husband welcomed a new little one to their family in January 2015.