Letter from the Chair-Elect
Anne Lomperis, Language Training Designs, Montgomery Village, Maryland, USA
Greetings to all our members and interested readers, wherever you are tuning in from around the world. We are very committed to creating community within our ESP IS – and partner organizations.
Partnership with IATEFL (the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language)
Yes, as Gerlinde has reported, we are engaging with our counterparts within IATEFL. In addition to the IATEFL Online Open Forum event in December at which Kevin Knight presented, and the January webinar that Gerlinde organized, I am looking forward to leading a webinar for the IATEFL ESP SIG at the end of May (Friday, 5-29-26, 9 am Eastern Time US / 2 pm UK Time).
My topic will be “Developing Larger Identities and Roles as an EOP Professional.” I will discuss the EOP (English for Occupational Purposes) Framework related to three levels of engagement: national economic development; industry sector organization pain-points and costs; and instructional design for individual client programs.
TESOL 2026, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA, March 24-27, 2026
I also share details about our ESP IS Academic Session that has been organized for TESOL 2026. This is in addition to the wide-ranging topics that will be covered in the Intersection Session with the Higher Education IS, as organized by Gerlinde. We look forward to seeing you at both.
The Academic Session will be on Friday, March 27, at 8:00-9:15 am, Ballroom C, Salt Palace Convention Center/ SPCC. It will have an EOP and AI focus. Our title is “Identifying Key Language Patterns Across Industry Sectors with AI Assistance.” We will explore how AI can crunch large amounts of data to develop banks of key language patterns that recur across industry sectors. These banks can then serve as a resource from which to draw well-researched and indexed material that can make curriculum development more efficient for any industry sector.
From preliminary research, we anticipate key language patterns will relate to instructions and safety, with many subcategories under each. A special language pattern that encompasses both instructions and safety is the authority gradient (e.g., when cultural power distance inhibits contradiction of a superior's emergency decision).
Andy Mattingly (Emby Riddle Aeronautical University, Florida, US), an AI guru, will lay out the potential and limitations of AI in data crunching across industry sectors. Then two other panelists will discuss the application of AI to select industry sectors. Grace Davis (EnGen, serving the US and Canada), will speak about the health care sector, among others. Denis Manson, a career aviation engineer (Ten Hammers, Brisbane, Australia), will speak about aviation maintenance technology based on prior collaboration with AI experienced teachers from the Military Technological College in Muscat, Oman.
EOP Chat Group
I would also like to follow up on an initiative I introduced in the Fall ESP IS Newsletter of November 2025. This is for an EOP Chat Group that would meet by Zoom once a month to discuss topics to support each other. My experience is that most EOP folks feel quite isolated around the world and would really appreciate a chance to “meet” with colleagues on a regular basis. The goal is to make the meetings synchronous and convenient to participate in. So, I would be willing to meet up to four iterations per month to target different world time zones. See more details in the Fall Newsletter. But click on this link to fill out a form to indicate your interest. https://forms.office.com/r/RZiq0jzAVd I look forward to seeing you in a Chat!
And, of course, I look forward to seeing all of you who are coming to Salt Lake. Be sure to attend all our featured ESP IS sessions and events!
Anne Lomperis (Chair-Elect ESP IS)
Anne Lomperis is Chief Solution Partner at Language Training Designs, her solo entrepreneurship founded in 1989 and based now in Greater Washington, DC, USA. Her specialty is English for Occupational Purposes (EOP) in support of national economic development, organizational management issues, innovative technology in training delivery, and systematic collaboration with industry experts for customized curriculum development. She is also very committed to EOP professional development for improved quality of service provision, greater recognition of EOP value-add, and therefore increased income generation at industry scale for a worldwide cadre of EOP career specialists.