María Rossana Ramírez, Guayaquil, Ecuador

Dear HEIS Community,

I had the pleasure to attend the South East Regional TESOL conference in Orlando, Florida. This was held from 5–9 November. It was an opportunity to share nice moments with acquaintances, to network, and to get new fresh ideas from colleagues.

Something that called my attention was the different strategies for reading comprehension. It was great to know that colleagues in the United States are also improving this skill through a variety of class activities. In Ecuador, a group of 20 master students are involved in a research project targeting reading comprehension.

Among the different interesting people, I had the opportunity to chat with a Cambridge officer. He mentioned that an article will be released soon about reading online sources. Findings indicated that students do not read online. There are many reasons for that, and one may be that they lack the reading skills and need scaffolding to become autonomous readers.

Another interesting fact that I learned was about phrasal verbs. I did not know there were so many and that speech without them may sound unnatural or not fluent. This is something that the other participants in the workshop also realized.

Hope you find these two facts relevant to consider in your lesson planning or for future research studies. Students need to become proficient readers, and phrasal verbs have an impact on communication.

I also invite you to read the studies included in this issue and share your perspective.

Regards,

María Rossana Ramírez

Chair, TESOL Higher Education Interest Section