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Dear SPLIS Members,
We all acknowledge the peculiarities and hardships that have occurred in the past year. However, in this space, I wish to provide positive reflection on what SPLIS has accomplished. Our TESOL community has deftly adapted to ensuring that communications and content be provided, even as many members move to modes of teaching and research that weren’t the norm. The SPLIS team, from the steering committee to members, has continued forward, knowing that what we learn now will be used later.
Among others, SPLIS goals for the 2020-2021 year were to organize webinars, collaborate with fellow interest sections and affiliated pronunciation organizations, and increase the visibility of SPLIS. Sinem Sonsaat-Hegelheimer, our 2020-2021 chair, has worked hard to achieve these goals.
In the past year, we’ve held a number of webinars, focusing on both research and classroom practices, as well as pronunciation/speaking and listening. The speakers hailed from Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, and New Zealand. Titles included:
- Empirical approaches to measuring intelligibility of different varieties of English
- Pronunciation: Muscle, mind, meaning, memory
- The "good" teacher of listening
- English: Local accentism; global accentism
- Integrating ASR-dictation into your pronunciation teaching
- A framework for pronunciation feedback —Corrective feedback gets depressed when it is all alone
Important to note is the variety of topics covered by the webinars. Research, teaching, technology, assessment, sociophonetics—SPLIS is an interest section of members and collaborators with wonderfully diverse interests. It is our hope that everyone who attended the webinars was able to find something that resonated with them, whether that be questions and a furthered interest in an area, a technique or idea to test in their classroom, or a connection to their own work.
Thanks to our community manager, Pelin Irgin, we’ve kept active on TESOL’s platform and social media (including a SPLIS Facebook page), promoting events, the newsletter, and conferences associated with our specialty. We’ve also seen outreach by our members on their own social media, from Facebook to LinkedIn. Promoting our collective interests strengthens our community.
Matthias Maunsell and Shannon McCrocklin expanded offerings in our newsletter, adding an interview section with an expert. This new piece has been a welcome addition, allowing us to hear from those in the field. It has provided a “distanced” connection with those we may otherwise have met or seen at conferences.
Building on the momentum from the 2020-2021 steering committee, I hope that we can continue to build connections with other interest sections and related associations/organizations; continue holding webinars spanning myriad topics; connect on social media and other platforms, making SPLIS visible to many; provide opportunities to have members interact and share knowledge outside of the annual conference; and provide transparency about the steering committee and other work in which members can participate.
Finally, I hope everyone joins us at the 2021 TESOL Convention March 24-27! The conference will be virtual, and I encourage everyone to take advantage of the opportunities such a platform provides, including flexibility in attending and viewing sessions, asking questions, and interacting with peers.
I wish to thank the 2020-2021 SPLIS steering committee, webinar presenters, and members who have contributed to SPLIS’ goals this past year. I look forward to another year of successes and adaptations!
Best,
Catherine E. Showalter
SPLIS Chair-Elect, 2020-2021 |
