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Cinderella peeks through my slightly ajar office door. Her
questions pull me away from whatever task I was doing. “What are some
best practices for holding individual conferences in the context of oral
skills or pronunciation courses? Can you recommend any sources that
address this topic?” I mutter a response, “Nothing comes to mind. I’ll
have to look around.” Later, alone in my office, I search briefly and
come up empty. Why hasn’t anyone published on this essential, uhm,
valuable component to our pronunciation and oral communication courses?
Surely, I can find something! No time now. I’ll have to look again
later. Oh, wait a minute. There was chatter about a session happening at
TESOL 2020 that deals with this exact topic. A tinge of excitement
begins to replace my initial frustration, then frustration returns as we
all learn that TESOL 2020 had to be canceled due to the COVID-19
pandemic. Now more than ever, I want to send a message of hope to
everyone. Even Cinderella should remain hopeful. During this time of
physical separation and vast unknowns, many people are diligently
working on this and other questions.
In my story, Cinderella peeking through my door was really an
email from two colleagues in my department. But really, there are
numerous Cinderella-like areas in language teaching. Certainly, SPLISers
are not the only ones who feel this way. Don’t get me wrong. We proudly
acknowledge the many important strides made in speaking, listening, and
pronunciation research. Still, we sometimes run across an idea, topic,
or problem area that apparently has not been addressed in
language-teaching literature, or if so, requires a great deal of digging
to locate.
So, my question to you, dear readers, is “What are some
neglected SPLIS areas?” This letter is an invitation to join this and
many other important conversations happening in our SPLIS community, in
our SPLIS newsletter As We Speak, and our webpage.
My dream for SPLIS is that our community will continue to be a valuable
resource for addressing these gaps, big and small, and even those
questions we haven’t thought of yet.
Sincerely,
Suzanne Franks |
