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Dear Colleagues, Collaborators, and Friends,
We are more than excited to be coming on as the co-chairs elect
this year, especially because the work our interest section represents
is more important now than it has been in many years.
Summer Reading List
As we enter into the summer season, we want to present you with
a social justice / social responsibility reading list from which to add
to your already large stack of summer reading bookers. Here are a few
to consider, and…book club anyone?
● Dear America: Notes of an undocumented citizen by José Antonio Vargas
● Race, Empire, and English Language Teaching by Suhanthie Motha
● Tears we Cannot Stop: A Sermon to White America by Michael Eric Dyson
● White Fragility: Why it is so hard for White people
to talk about racism by Robin DiAngelo
Summer Reflection
In addition to reading this summer, we encourage all of you to
reflect on the ways that you incorporate social responsibility in your
teaching and in your life. For instance, do you
● teach with the intention to learn?
● actively listen to the stories of minorities and target groups?
● actively interrupt oppression, even when it comes from surprising places?
● ask difficult questions and be open to difficult answers?
● take small steps every day to reduce your carbon footprint or take care of our earth?
We hope that you will be proactive as you consider ways that
you can make your classrooms more socially just and responsible by
incorporating topics related to social, environmental, or economic
justice in your lesson plans. Don’t forget to help your students see
social responsibility as a daily expectation by pushing yourself outside
your own comfort zone one step at a time.
Summer Collaboration
As you consider your classrooms for the fall, we want to hear
from you and work with you! At TESOL 2020, we are planning on using the
theme English Across the Fracture Lines based on an edited volume
published by the British Council (available for free, download
here). The editor defines fracture lines as:
difficult situations stemming from political,
religious, ethnic or environmental instability. Of course, migration is
only one of these pressing challenges. To this list must be added the
often interrelated challenges of civil unrest, violent conflict,
poverty, environmental degradation and health emergencies.
Using this book as the research basis for the academic session,
we would like to speak to this concept from the perspective of the 4
advocacy areas: ELL Advocacy, Intersections of Identity in Language
Teaching, Professional Learning, and Global Education. If you are
interested in possibly joining us, please contact the leaders of each
area or the co-chair elects directly.
Here’s to all of the important work we do!
Kind regards,
Sky
Lantz-Wagner and Federico
Salas-Isnardi
SRIS Co-chairs Elect | 
