Letter from the Editor

Lan Wang-Hiles, West Virginia State University, Virginia, USA

Dear PAIS Colleagues and TESOL Friends:

Greetings! I hope everyone started off the spring semester successfully. I am excited to introduce two PAIS newsletter articles for the PAIS spring 2025 issue. The authors are two dear colleagues and seasoned program administrators from our own PAIS community: Alemayehu Anberbir, the PAIS in-coming Chair, and Kashif Raza, the former PAIS Co-Chair. In their articles, they shared their unique and rich insight into the topic regarding the importance of professional development for language teachers and TESOL leadership and leadership research respectively. I firmly believe readers who are interested in these two topics will gain new ideas, and language program administrators will be inspired.

In his article, Professional Development Practices for English Language Teaching Professionals, Alemayehu shares his belief in the significance of professional development for language teachers. He highlights how professional development plays a crucial role for ELT teachers to effectively perform their teaching, adapt to new educational trends, and meet the diverse needs of language students. The second article focuses on Kashif’s TESOL leadership experiences and his leadership research through an interview I conducted with him. Kashif’s reflections on his leadership journey and experiences as well as his insights into leadership strategies will definitely help any language program administrator. I am proud to work with these two wonderful language teacher-scholars and learn about their perspectives about these two topics. I would like to thank both authors for sharing their insights with PAIS newsletter readers.

I would also like to invite language program administrators, TESOL experts and leaders, both domestically and globally, to share your experiences and perspectives, contributing your insight into language program administration for the newsletter of PAIS fall 2025 issue. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at [email protected]. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Lan Wang-Hiles

PAIS Newsletter Editor

Lan Wang-Hiles is Associate Professor of English at West Virginia State University, where she directed the ESL Program. Her research interests include second language writing, writing center theory and tutoring practice, multilingualism, and non-native English-speaking teacher identity. Her studies appear as journal articles and book chapters in these fields. She is the newsletter editor of the Program Administration Interest Section (PAIS) for TESOL, Chair of the Non-Native English-Speaking Writing Instructors (NNESWIs) Standing Group for the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC), and a West Virginia TESOL Board member.