Dear SPLIS colleagues,

I am delighted to have this opportunity to chair the SPLIS Interest Section for 2014–2015. I feel so fortunate to be a part of an Interest Section that remains strong and continues to grow in membership and in conference presentations and attendees. I’d like to start by welcoming all our new members and thanking all the teachers and researchers that submitted or reviewed proposals for the upcoming annual convention in Toronto, Canada. I hope to see you all at the convention next March. Don’t miss such a great opportunity to meet other experts in our field and network!

I have some exciting news to share. Amanda Huensch and I have been working closely to bring to you three interesting InterSection sessions at the Toronto convention. On the one hand, we have organized one session with the International Teaching Assistants (ITA) IS called “Pedagogical Priorities for Improving Pronunciation, Listening, and Speaking Skills.” On the other hand, together with ITA IS, we will be cosponsoring one session organized by English as a Foreign Language IS called “International Civil Aviation Organization Language Proficiency Standards: Air Transportation Safety Issues” and another organized by Video and Digital Media IS called “Incorporating Digital Media to Enhance Speaking Skills.” Finally, our featured SPLIS Academic Session will be “Achieving, Assessing, and Teaching Oral Fluency.” I hope you find these panel discussions enlightening and invigorating for your research and teaching practices. We will soon hear about the research and practice-oriented presentations as well as the posters, workshops, and roundtables allotted to SPLIS for the annual convention when TESOL’s preconvention program comes out later this year. Stay tuned for more to come.

I hope you enjoy this issue of the newsletter and find great tips and ideas to incorporate into your practice. Please consider sharing your ideas and work with our membership through our SPLIS newsletter and e-list. One of the greatest strengths of our Interest Session is our passion to share and make our research more visible. I’d like to invite you to join us in our efforts and to become more involved with our IS through submissions and reviews for the annual convention and the newsletter, and with our web community available through the TESOL website. Also, please consider bringing your friends and volunteering to serve with us. If you would like to be considered for a position in SPLIS, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Finally, I want to thank all our members for their support and to everyone in our steering committee group for their invaluable help:

Chair-Elect: Amanda R. Huensch
Past Chair: Tamara Jones
Newsletter Editors: Lauren J. Lovvorn and Demetria Li
Member at Large: Cindy Lennox
Community Manager: Robert Elliot
Secretary: Char Heitman
Historian: Judy Gilbert

Sincerely,
Veronica Sardegna