SPLIS Newsletter - September 2020 (Plain Text Version)
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LEADERSHIP UPDATES LETTER FROM THE CHAIR
Dear SPLIS Members and Readers, I hope you all have kept safe and healthy in the last six months while we have been dealing with COVID-19. It has tremendously changed how things are done globally. Large-scale conferences like TESOL, AAAL, and IATEFL had to be canceled for 2020 and even some for 2021. So, it has been a challenging year so far for TESOL as well as other organizations. Although it is sad that we could not meet in Denver for the annual Convention this year, it is wonderful that TESOL was able to put a Virtual Convention together in such a short time. On 2 April, we had an online open business meeting for Speech, Pronunciation, and Listening Interest Section (SPLIS) members in which we said goodbye to some of our former steering committee members, including Veronica Sardegna, Holly Hubbard, and Suzanne Franks. On behalf of SPLIS members, I would like to thank them for the great service they provided for SPLIS. Our steering committee members for 2020–2021 include Catherine Showalter (chair-elect), Matthias Maunsell (As We Speak coeditor), Shannon McCrocklin (As We Speak coeditor), Pelin Irgin (community manager), Sezgi Acar (secretary), and Nancy Elliot (member-at-large). I am grateful to them all for their contributions so far this year. Last but not least, I would like to give a heartfelt thank you to Susan Spezzini (past chair, 2020–2021) and Veronica Sardegna (past chair, 2019–2020) for continually sharing their experiences with me and guiding me through my new role as the SPLIS chair. I really appreciate their support! In our open business meeting, we set several goals for SPLIS in 2020–2021, and two of those important goals were to increase the visibility of our group and to organize webinars. I am happy to announce that we are making progress on these goals. Now we have a Facebook page for SPLIS in addition to our MyTESOL community page. Please follow us on both platforms and feel free to invite any of your colleagues who might be interested in speech, pronunciation, and listening to follow us on Facebook. We had the first SPLIS webinar on 20 May. Okim Kang, Ron Thomson, and Meghan Moron presented their research on “Empirical approaches to measuring intelligibility of different varieties of English.” It was a wonderful first webinar with 142 attendees. Those of you who could not attend can view the archived recording. Our second webinar was on 30 July. Mark Hancock, who is the author of many well-known pronunciation teaching books, such as English Pronunciation in Use, Pronunciation Games, and PronPack, talked about how pronunciation teaching can be approached from four angles: muscle, mind, meaning, and memory. It was another great webinar with 104 attendees. Many teachers who used Mark Hancock’s materials in their pronunciation teaching joined the session. If you could not join us for the talk, see the archived recording. Please remember that interest section webinars are free for both SPLIS members and nonmembers. So, if you think your colleagues might be interested in a topic, feel free to invite them to one of our webinars. Additionally, please remember that interest section webinars are recorded and shared on TESOL International Association’s YouTube channel. Another goal we have is to inform you about the events and conferences that are organized by TESOL or other fellow organizations or scholars. So, I am also happy to announce that a fellow interest section of IATEFL, PronSIG, will be organizing an online pronunciation conference on 4 October 2020. Please follow them to learn more about the proposal submission and registration. To read the proceedings from the 11th Pronunciation in Second Language Learning and Teaching (PSLLT) Conference, please click here. Lastly, click here for the latest issue of Journal of Second Language Pronunciation. And finally, I would like to thank those who contributed to this issue of our newsletter: Teresa Cusumano, Rita DiFiore, Kayla Landers, Mary Newbegin, Elena Reiss, Juli Sarris, Ashley Fifer, Kim Edmunds, Carolyn Saylor-Loof, and Tristan Thorne. I would also like to thank our newsletter coeditor Shannon McCrocklin for interviewing Marnie Reed, a prominent practitioner and researcher in second language pronunciation. I would especially like to give a shout-out to our newsletter coeditor, Matthias Maunsell, who was the leading editor for this issue. On behalf of our SPLIS members, I would like to thank all our members and followers who support us and make our events more meaningful with their participation. I hope that we can meet you SPLISers at the next TESOL in Houston, Texas. Stay safe and happy! Sinem Sonsaat-Hegelheimer SPLIS Chair, 2020–2021 |
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