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Hello SRIS!
It is a pleasure to greet you as the new co-chairs of SRIS for
the 2019-2020 year. We loved serving as your newsletter editors for the
past two years, and are thrilled to hand editing duties off to Luis and
Ethan as we step into our new role. We are excited to bring some new
opportunities of involvement to you as well as discuss the vision we
have for this interest section going forward.
First of all, as stated in our academic session in Atlanta, this is our interest section. SRIS is its members,
which means that those of you reading this are us. As this is our
interest section, and we welcome all, we also need to take the time in
this space to address an issue that was raised at our open meeting. At
the 2019 convention in Atlanta, a white presenter shared a teaching tip
with strategies she used to get her students in Colombia to stop using
the N word. While SRIS was not responsible for the inclusion of this
session in the convention program (this was the first year of the strand
adjudication process, which means that it was the Advocacy and Social
Justice strand–an entirely separate entity–that approved the session),
we had published an article by the presenter on the same topic in the
December 2017 issue of our newsletter. After discussions with both the
presenter and the members of the Black English Language Professionals
and Friends Professional Learning Network, who raised their concerns at
the open meeting, we have decided to take down the original article, and
to change our editorial processes to ensure an extra layer of review
for potentially sensitive articles. We have also added a new section to
the newsletter, called Dialogue and Reflection, which is specifically
designed for SRIS members to have a space to respond to current issues,
regardless of the issue’s theme. Finally, we have been working with the
leadership of TESOL to support changes that incorporate diversity issues
into the convention adjudication process. We hope that these responses
will help reestablish SRIS as a safe space for all our marginalized
members, and we sincerely apologize to anyone who was hurt by our
publication of the article. We are excited to move forward with more
inclusion and involvement from all of our membership and thank you for
your support and your important work moving forward.
We’ve updated our IS goals for the year, and would like to
highlight the key features of our plan for our year as chairs. Along the
lines of involvement, the domains that we started last year have
several projects in the works including book proposals, webinars, and
articles. Please make sure you take the survey from the Intersections of
Identity domain, which you can find here,
in order to shape that domain’s direction for the coming year. We will
also be sending out open calls to be part of our conference sessions and
upcoming webinars, so look for those soon. Make sure you are signed up
to receive announcements from our MyTESOL
page so you don’t miss them. We also have a social media
presence on both Facebook
and Twitter.
Lastly, we are working hard to build connections with TESOL affiliates
globally, such as IATEFL, ETAI, PELTA, and Africa TESOL, as well as with
groups within TESOL, such as the PLNs. If anyone has connections with
other affiliates or groups that would be interested in collaborating
with SRIS, please get in touch with us. We are particularly interested
in expanding our online offerings, in order to increase the
accessibility of SRIS’s resources for teachers around the
world.
Global connections in the work of social justice and advocacy
are now more important than ever. We look forward to partnering with all
of you this year and would love to hear any ideas you have for the
interest section this coming year.
Sincerely,
Riah and Anastasia
Co-Chairs of SRIS (2019-2020)
Riah Werner is an English teacher and teacher trainer
who has taught in Africa, Asia and South America. She is finishing her
second year as an English Language Fellow in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire,
where she designed a national continuing professional development
project for in-service teachers. In the fall she will begin her PhD in
Language and Literacy Education at the University of Toronto. Her
research interests include drama and the arts, social justice in ELT,
and locally contextualized pedagogy.
Anastasia Khawaja has been in the TESOL teaching
profession for 11 years. She received her doctorate in second language
acquisition/instructional technology from the University of South
Florida. Her dissertation research focused on the emotions associated
with languages that Palestinians use in Palestine and in the diaspora.
She currently holds the position of senior instructor at INTO University
of South Florida and has international teaching experience in Peru,
South Korea, and the United Arab Emirates. |
