Feb. 8, 2018
Dear Members,
Happy New Year! Although I am not sure we are allowed to still say that in February, it seems as though January was a bit of a whirlwind and here we are already one full month into 2018. As Acting President, I wanted to send an update regarding TESL Canada so that everyone is in the loop.
To begin, I am pleased to say that our TESL Canada Journal and its SSHRC grant are securely housed at the institution of our Co-Editor, Farahnez Faez, the University of Western Ontario. We are grateful to Dr. Faez and Dr. Valeo for their perseverance and diligence with respect to our journal and are excited to read the regular and special issues for 2017 which will be published in the very near future on the TESL Canada Journal website: http://teslcanadajournal.ca. Also, we are pleased to announce a call for papers for a 2018 special issue focused on the “Shifting Landscape of Professional Self-Development for ELT Professionals” with guest editor, David Wood.
https://www.tesl.ca/publications/tesl-canada-journal/journal-announcements.html
I am also pleased to announce that we have reopened individual teacher certification and all information regarding the submission process as well as the application forms can be found at:
https://www.tesl.ca/certification/tesl-canada-professional-certification/application-forms.html
A new part-time person, Donna Hoffman, a TESL NB member, an ESL educator and an experienced administrator, will be devoting up to 10 hours per week to communications and certification.
In terms of Teacher Training Program Recognition (TTPR), we have made the decision to extend renewals of all TTPRs in good standing by 6 months in order to give some time to decide on a process for recognition that is feasible and functional for TTPs and for TESL Canada. For the time being, TESL Canada is accepting no new TTPR applications, but we will be maintaining recognition and updating our website accordingly.
Finally, I want members to know that the Board is meeting regularly (last meeting was January 29th) and moving forward with discussions about not only the three key matters discussed above, but about other possibilities for the near future (e.g., re-activating PR and outreach, considering ideas for PD). In addition, we are almost planning regular meetings with provincial Presidents with the next meeting to be held on Feb. 26th. We are very grateful to those provincial affiliates who have signed the interim MoU and have given their interim support to TESL Canada while we slowly and carefully rebuild.
We will be planning an AGM in New Brunswick for June 2018 and at that time we hope to be voting in a new Board and talking about plans for the moving forward. We encourage members to consider engagement in TESL Canada.
Thank you so much for continued support,
Paula Kristmanson- Acting President, TESL Canada
