Dear Fellow SPLIS Members,

Greetings! We hope you have got some rest and recharge after the busy final week of 2016. If you’re planning for teaching in the new semester, you may find some fresh ideas in this issue of the SPLIS newsletter. In this publication for 2017, we’re happy to bring you two articles that touch on subjects such as good listening activities for EFL/ESL learners shared by experienced instructors, and how to design skill-integrated lesson plans to foster students’ self-awareness in an advanced listening and speaking class.

It was great to see some of you at the 2016 convention in Baltimore! The number of concurrent sessions taking place at any given time was simply overwhelming because of their rich information and resources. The SPLIS social event, which highlighted newly published books through drawings and talking with the authors, also made this year’s convention more unforgettable, informative, and fun. The steering committee announced changes in our community, such as ushering in a new co-editor, Shiao-Chen Tsai, and our new chair, Beth Sheppard.

In closing, please consider submitting for the June or December 2017 SPLIS newsletter. Whether you’re fairly new or a seasoned educator, it’s always inspiring to hear about the success of others in classroom situations similar to our own. You might write about a well-received lesson, a recent presentation, or a research project to highlight the pedagogical implications for teachers. If you have an idea you think others might be interested in, please contact us by email.

Read on and be refreshed!

Demi and Shiao-Chen

Demetria Li is the teacher training program coordinator and a full-time faculty member at The University of Alabama, where she has been an ESL instructor for the last 5 years. Although both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees were earned in Mississippi, Demi has spent about 8 years living and working abroad and still looks for opportunities to travel.

Shiao-Chen Tsai is a doctoral candidate working in the Writing Center at The Ohio State University, where she also received her MA-TESOL degree. Her dissertation focuses on academic listening and note-taking. Her teaching experiences included: English conversation and TOEFL preparation in California, high school English writing in Ohio, and secondary school English in Taiwan.