Greetings TEIS Community!

It has been a busy year in our interest section (IS), in our organization, and in our field. Our community is more important than ever to the well-being of English learners and their teachers worldwide. In these challenging times, many of us have sought opportunities to come together in strength, support, and solidarity surrounding the issues that we care most deeply about. To that end, we celebrate our professional community and those of us who are able to attend the convention in Seattle can connect even further while there. Make a note to come to our Open Meeting on Wednesday, 22 March at 5 pm to meet our new leadership team!

In between conferences, it is even more important to stay connected. You may have noticed that we have moved to a new community platform, myTESOL, and seen several interesting discussions posted to our community. Are you connected to our TEIS community via myTESOL? You can read the discussions on the website, receive daily digests of the messages posted, or get email about each message in real time. Go to myTESOL, sign in using your TESOL credentials, click “Communities” to check your enrollment and settings, then watch for more discussions in the lead-up to TESOL’s 2017 convention in Seattle. We also started a TEIS Facebook page at last year’s conference and already are close to 400 members!

The TESOL Teacher Education Blog is another dynamic way to share information, and our six-session webinars have been a fun innovation in extending the “conference” feel throughout the year. Each of the webinars is archived on the TESOL website—Below are the topics we had in 2016–2017:

• edTPA in TESOL (SCALE)
• TESOL Teacher Educators’ Roles in Preparing Candidates for IEPS (Gulbahar Beckett)
• The TESOL Methods Course (Wayne Wright)
• Preparing Mainstream Teachers to Work with ELLs (Ester de Jong)
• The U.S. Department of State English Fellows Program Opportunities (Jennifer Uhler)
• TESOL Online Program Considerations (Faridah Pawan)

This year has also brought a process of change to ISs within TESOL. At the 2016 convention, an Interest Section Task Force presented findings and let us know that the IS system would be changed, with input from all members. We have recently received the proposal that TESOL will have knowledge-based member communities (KBMCs) instead of ISs. You can find more information about this change and make comments about it on the TESOL Blog. Please follow this information and share your input to help TEIS have a wonderful future as a KBMC, with increased year-round activities.

I’m excited to hear from you on myTESOL and to see some of you in Seattle this year. The lineup of teacher-education related topics is extensive and rich.

In appreciation for all you do as a teacher educator,

Laura