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Joshua Gordon
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Catherine E. Showalter
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Dear SPLIS Community,
This past year has been a very productive one for our Speech, Pronunciation, and Listening interest section in terms of professional development activities, research and academic presentations despite continuous pandemic challenges. During these past twelve months, we hosted seven different webinars and a coffee hour with research- or teaching-oriented topics ranging from high-variability phonetic training and orthography to materials development in teaching listening comprehension, or technology and oral corrective feedback—among others. These webinars also covered relevant aspects for all the three areas of our interest section (speech, listening comprehension, and pronunciation).
The 2022 TESOL International Convention in Pittsburgh had an active participation of our interest section in academic presentations and intersection sessions. Our academic session was led by a panel of three experts (Alyssa Kermad, California State Polytechnic University; Daniel R. Isbell, University of Hawai’i at Manoa; and Valeria Bogorevich, Arizona Western College) who discussed methods for implementing assessment practices in L2 speaking and pronunciation. For our interest section intersessions, we collaborated with the Teacher Educator Interest Section in a presentation of key issues in teacher training on preparing future pronunciation teachers. We also collaborated with the Teaching Writing Interest Section in a presentation about multimodal writing (and speaking) instruction.
As we close the 2021-2022 year, we would like to thank Sinem Sonsat-Hegelheimer (past chair) and Pelin Irgin (community manager) for their hard work, commitment, and support as they transition off of the steering committee. We welcome three new members to our steering committee: Meghan Moran Wilson (chair-elect), Lucy Bunning (member at large), and Agata Guskaroska (community manager). Special thanks also to the As We Speak newsletter co-editors, Mara Haslam and Brandon Cooper, for their work .
In the past year, we have nearly doubled our membership. We are grateful for the continued interest in and support of SPLIS, and will continue to offer opportunities for our community to interact and learn as we transition to 2022-2023. Goals for 2022-2023 include continuing to provide high-quality webinars, striving to represent all areas of SPLIS interests and provide the opportunity to any member (and non-member) of TESOL who may be interested. Webinars have been one way we have gained more SPLIS members. We are also working on expanding professional development options, including the addition of a SPLIS podcast. Through this podcast, our members will be able to listen to what other researchers and teachers have to say about different issues in the teaching of speech, listening, and pronunciation skills. Please wait for it! We would also like to organize an event this year where teachers can share teaching ideas, lesson plans, or materials for the teaching of speech, listening, and pronunciation skills. Please be on the lookout for this too.
Thank you all for your continuous support of SPLIS. We are excited about these different projects for our interest section and we are looking forward to working with all of you during this year.
Sincerely,
Joshua Gordon (Chair 2022-2023)
Catherine E. Showalter (Past Chair 2021-2022)
Joshua Gordon is an Assistant Professor in TESOL and Applied Linguistics at the University of Northern Iowa. He received his Ph.D. in Second Language Studies from Indiana University, Bloomington. He has trained pre-service and in-service ESL and EFL teachers. His research interests include second-language pronunciation teaching and learning, second-language teacher cognition, and nonnative-speaking teachers of English.
Catherine E. Showalter holds a PhD in Linguistics with a specialization in second language phonology from the University of Utah. She is currently Associate Director of the Office of Undergraduate Research at North Carolina State University. Previously, she was faculty in the ESL program at Northeastern University. Her interests include second language phono-lexical acquisition, the orthographic-phonological interface, and bridging gaps between experimental research and classroom practices. |
