Heather Linville- Chair

I am Heather Linville, current Chair of the Teacher Educator Interest Section, and Professor and TESOL Director at the University of Wisconsin, La Crosse. My previous research has centered on the advocacy ESL teachers engage in for and with English learners, and the factors that impact teachers’ advocacy work. The TEIS theme this year, storytelling in teacher education, is an important one to me. I believe we are all storytellers, we all have stories to tell, and we connect with others through our stories. In addition, storytelling is a valuable and useful tool in advocacy as all voices are elevated. The form of storytelling I am most interested in right now is digital storytelling—storytelling that combines voice, images, and music to tell meaningful stories that are shared easily. In line with this theme, Polina Vinogradova and I are publishing soon a book about digital storytelling and translanguaging in language education!

Polina Vinogradova - Chair-elect

I am Polina Vinogradova, current Chair-Elect of the Teacher Educator Interest Section (TEIS). I am Hurst Senior Professorial Lecturer and TESOL Program Director at American University in Washington, DC, USA. For many years, my research has evolved around digital storytelling. First, I worked with English learners at a university and explored how digital storytelling can be used in academic English classes and later, my focus shifted towards using digital storytelling with TESOL students. In my current research, I connect digital storytelling with advocacy. I find it very important to create space for multilingual and multimodal voices of learners and teachers in TESOL settings. It creates space for recognition, understanding, healing, and reflection, which, in turn, facilitate productive and collaborative language learning. That is why I find the topic of storytelling so important. And I hope you all will join us this year in telling stories and exploring various ways of doing so to benefit and support multilingual learners and educators.

Grazzia Mendoza - Chair elect-elect

I am currently Chair Elect-Elect of the TEIS. I am also the founder and former President of HELTA TESOL in Honduras, former President of LAC TESOL, and Board member of the TESOL International Association Board of Directors from 2019-2022, where I served as Chair of the Finance Committee. I have been an educator for 30 years teaching at all levels from Pk-12, Higher Education and Adult Education. I have managed education projects to support the Ministry of Education in Honduras in terms of access to quality of education and social emotional learning skills development, as well as school-based violence prevention. I have been an active presenter worldwide since 2007 and supported TESOL affiliates and ELTAs in Latin America. I am a firm believer that sharing our stories and narratives, our journey’s experiences, successes, and challenges help others become inspired and motivated and encourage them to share their stories as well and follow their dreams. Stories and storytelling also support creating awareness on DEIA and promoting social justice, tolerance and respect to varied perspectives and backgrounds. These are only a few examples of how stories/narratives enrich our personal and professional growth, and we should promote and engage others in becoming part of the storytelling process providing a safe platform to share and the openness to learn. I am glad that this year’s TEIS theme revolves around storytelling and that we will provide a platform where we will all be able to learn and share those stories that will make our profession grow and thrive!

James Whiting - Past Chair

James Whiting, Ph.D. is a Professor of Applied Linguistics & TESOL at Plymouth State University in Plymouth, New Hampshire, where he also coordinates the graduate program in TESOL. Over the last 30 years he has taught English learners and prepared English language teachers in the US and overseas in Spain, Russia, Quebec and Panama where he was a Fulbright Scholar. His research interests include advocacy in TESOL, and English language learners in low-incidence settings.

Bridget Schvarcz - Newsletter Editor

Bridget Schvarcz, Ph.D., is the head of the English Unit at Afeka Academic College of Engineering and a teacher educator for the Israeli Ministry of Education, Department of Professional Development of Teaching Staff. She currently serves as the chair of the English Teachers’ Association of Israel – a proud TESOL affiliate – and as an editor of the TEIS Newsletter. Starting from Summer 2023 she will also hold a position as lecturer in M.A. TESOL program at Tel Aviv University. Her research interests include formal semantics, language awareness, linguistic landscape and language in areas of intractable conflict.

Khanh-Duc Kuttig - Newsletter Editor

I am Khanh-Duc Kuttig, an instructor in EFL in the Department of English at the University of Siegen. I am first and foremost a language teacher and have a strong interest in developing teacher language proficiency and 21st century skills in my pre-service teachers, all of whom are non-native speakers of English. I am a doctoral researcher at the Heidelberg University of Education and am currently building a corpus of classroom language in German secondary schools as part of my doctoral project. I have been with the newsletter team since 2021 and have enjoyed brainstorming with the TEIS leadership about themes for the newsletters, reaching out to potential authors, reviewing submissions and seeing the final product come to fruition.

Vu Tran-Thanh - Newsletter Editor

I am Vu Tran-Thanh and I am currently an ESRC-funded doctoral researcher at Durham University, UK. Prior to my doctoral studies, I worked as a high school EFL teacher and teacher trainer for nine years in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. I founded and run a professional learning community called TESOL Research Collaboration Network. I joined the newsletter team in 2022 and have enjoyed working with Khanh-Duc and Bridget in every stage of the production. My research interests include teacher professional learning, teacher identity, teachers’ beliefs, reality shock of beginning teachers and queer inquiry.