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Leigh Anne Shaw
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Dr. Adil Bentahar
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Yecid Ortega
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Valerie Jakar
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Dr. Michel Riquelme-Sanderson
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Elisabeth Chan
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Dr. Carter A. Winkle
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Heidi Faust
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English-Learner Advocacy
Leigh Anne Shaw is pleased to join Adil Bentahar and Edson Ursulo on the SRIS English-Learner Advocacy team. She has taught in central Europe, Morocco, and the United States and is currently a full professor of English for Speakers of Other Languages at Skyline College in the California Community Colleges system. She also serves in faculty leadership through the Academic Senate. Her chief interest is learner advocacy and equity for language learners and she believes that to be an ESL teacher is to be a learner advocate in the classroom, the institution, and in governmental policy. She is also committed to the transformation of TESOL into a fully anti-racist organization that promotes anti-racism throughout the entire field. She is currently guest-editing a themed issue of the CATESOL Journal focused on anti-racist perspectives, practices, and policies (anticipated Spring 2022).
Dr. Bentahar is an Assistant Professor in the English Language Institute (ELI) at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware, with an MA and PhD in Curriculum and Instruction and a Graduate Certificate in ESL. He has served in numerous leadership positions in the United States and Morocco, hence his keen interest in diversifying the TESOL curriculum with leadership and civics materials. Prior to joining the ELI, Adil taught ESL at Virginia Tech’s Language and Culture Institute and EFL in Morocco’s high schools.
Goals
- One of our goals is advocacy for language learners in higher education. Language learners face sociopolitical and structural challenges in education; the last several years in the United States witnessed unprecedented assaults on immigrants and language learners. The mischaracterization of ESL as a basic skill rather than a foreign language has severely curtailed the ability to equitably serve learners, as has the complication of residency-status awards and renewal. It is our goal to see greater transparency and visibility of English-language learners’ needs across the United States and worldwide.
- We also yearn to see the field of TESOL fully embrace anti-racism across the board. From curriculum and classroom materials to pedagogy and andragogy, from teacher training to teacher hiring, from admission policies to government policies, TESOL needs to be a transformative agent. The TESOL field needs to address white supremacy inherent in the epistemological canon and to decolonize teacher-training programs, curriculum, and hiring practices. It is our fervent goal that the names and faces at the foreground of the entire TESOL field one day be as diverse as the names and faces in our classrooms.
Global Issues in Education
Yecid Ortega finished his Ph.D. in Language and Literacies Education and the specialization program in Comparative, International, and Development Education (CIDE) at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education–University of Toronto. His general research interests are within (decolonial) critical ethnographic and case-study approaches in international, urban, and rural areas. Yecid explores how globalization, capitalism, and neoliberalism influence language-policy decision-making and classroom practices. He wonders how these juxtapose with concepts of culture and race. His current specific interest deals with aspects of social justice and peacebuilding within frameworks of epistemologies of the Global South. His research looks at how English-language teaching policy in Colombia is being understood by the school community (students, teachers, parents, principals, etc.) and how it influences classroom practices and students’ lived experiences.
Valerie Jakar, now retired, has been the ETAI-IsraTESOL representative to TESOL for many years. An ethnographer, sociolinguist, and teacher educator, she specialized in professional development projects such as mentor-training for ESOL teachers, the promotion of global issues awareness and peace education through content-based EFL instruction, and counseling and supervising pre-service and in-service teachers of English. One of the founding members of SRIS, she has continued to be concerned with collaboration in a global community, outreach to less privileged communities of practice, and the interaction of research and reflective practice for educational improvement.
Conceptual Goals
- We would like to know how TESOL membership conceptualizes terms such as peace, environmental, social, and economic justice education.
- We would like to understand how TESOL pedagogy better supports education in global issues.
Action Goals
- Create one seminar/webinar presentation online for TESOL members and non-TESOL members about social justice in TESOL from global perspectives
- Propose an edited book from international perspectives with some members of TESOL.
- Develop a project on how to support members dealing with emotional well-being, perhaps an online art project in which participants submit photos of artwork or other representations expressing how our members are coping with these uncertain times.
Intersections of Identity and ELT
Dr. Michel Riquelme-Sanderson is an assistant professor at Universidad Arturo Prat in Iquique, Chile. He is a former EFL teacher and has worked teaching in K-12 contexts in Chile and in the United States. He has completed graduate studies in higher education, teaching EFL, educational research, and curriculum. Dr. Riquelme-Sanderson currently teaches courses on curriculum, educational research, and language teaching methods. He has presented in various international conferences for language teachers and language teacher educators. His work focuses on the preparation of teachers, pedagogies of language teacher educators and language teachers, and social justice in the teaching of languages.
Elisabeth Chan has over 15 years of experience as an English-language educator. She is an associate professor of ESL at Northern Virginia Community College and a PhD candidate at George Mason University. Her research focuses on intersectionality, criticality, and relationality. She has advocated for, presented, researched, and published on social justice, diversity, equity, and inclusion in TESOL, where she draws upon her lived experiences as a second/fourth-generation Chinese American from the U.S. South.
Dr. Carter A. Winkle serves as Associate Dean for the Adrian Dominican School of Education’s Leadership and Professional Studies unit at Barry University. An Associate Professor of Education, he also facilitates doctoral and graduate courses across various education programs. Beyond research in the area of matriculation pathway programs for international ESL students in university settings, Dr. Winkle explores reflexivity and positionality in doctoral research education through self-study research practices. A practitioner of arts-based research methods and methodologies—in particular, ethnodrama and other narrative genres—he additionally examines research questions related to second-language teaching and learning through a social justice or advocacy lens.
Goals
- Through the development and delivery of two online webinars, learn about and explore the intersectionality of identity through the lens of both English-language teachers and English-language learners in order to enrich our pedagogical and research practices
- Grow SRIS members’ understanding of identity construction/development and issues within the TESOL profession
- More clearly articulate the Intersections of Identity and ELT area of advocacy for SRIS members and TESOL membership more broadly
Professional Learning
Professional Learning advocacy for SRIS will be led by Heidi Faust (she/her/hers). Heidi is a Consultant on Grants and Special Projects for TESOL International Association and is currently directing TESOL’s English Speaking Nation Secondary Teacher Training Program in Uzbekistan as part of a larger program administered by American Councils and funded by the U.S. Embassy, Tashkent. She is a former SRIS co-chair and was a founding member of the TESOL Diversity Collaborative Professional Learning Network. Heidi has over 25 years of experience in education working with culturally, linguistically diverse, and exceptional learners and in teacher education and development throughout the United States and with teachers from over 100 countries.
Goals
The goals of the professional learning area of advocacy of the 2021-2022 SRIS leadership will be to:
- Provide a professional learning webinar to engage TESOL educators in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the classroom with a focus on building awareness and tools for more equitable practices
- Support SRIS members in accessing ongoing professional learning opportunities to support their understanding and practice related to DEI and social responsibility
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