Letter from the Chair
Reza Dalman, Winona State University, Winona, Minnesota, USA
Hello SPLIS Community!
As we move forward into another exciting year, many of us are looking for fresh ideas, strategies, and technologies to enhance the teaching of speaking, pronunciation, and listening—or to train teachers in these critical skills. The field of TESOL continues to explore innovative, research-based approaches to improving oral communication instruction, and one of our key goals as a professional community is to bridge the gap between research and classroom practice in an accessible and practical way.
TESOL’s Speaking, Pronunciation, and Listening Interest Section (SPLIS) is committed to supporting educators and researchers through a variety of resources, including our newsletter, webinars, podcasts, and engaging panel presentations at the TESOL International Convention. These initiatives provide valuable insights, practical strategies, and a platform for meaningful discussions within our field.
We are also getting ready for the Annual TESOL Convention in Long Beach, CA, from March 18th to 21st, 2025! As usual, we are excited to collaborate with other interest sections. SPLIS will be the primary organizer for an Intersection Session with the CALL-Interest Section, and we will serve as the secondary organizer for another session in collaboration with the Applied Linguistics Interest Section. Both of these Intersection Interest Sessions will take place during the in-person convention in Long Beach. We hope to see many of you there!
If you haven’t already, I strongly encourage you to visit TESOL’s new online platform at my.tesol.org and officially join SPLIS! (Note: Even if you were a member previously, you need to manually rejoin on the new site.) While you’re there, take a moment to update your profile, explore our SPLIS page, and bookmark it for easy access to upcoming events and discussions.
We look forward to seeing you at our sessions and connecting throughout the year! If you have any questions, ideas, or suggestions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at ([email protected]). Let’s continue to collaborate, share insights, and strengthen our community of educators and researchers dedicated to teaching speaking, pronunciation, and listening.
Wishing you a fantastic year ahead—full of engaging lessons, insightful research, and meaningful connections!
Best,
Reza Dalman
SPLIS Chair
Reza Dalman (PhD Northern Arizona University) is an Assistant Professor of TESOL/Linguistics in the English Department at Winona State University. Reza’s research focuses on second language (L2) speech and intelligibility, speech perception and production, and oral assessment and testing. He has published the findings of his research in various TESOL-and Second Language Acquisition-related journals, including TESOL Quarterly, Language Teaching Research, International Journal of Listening, Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, Advances in Language and Literary Studies, and Asia TEFL, inter alia. Reza is currently working on two grant research projects investigating young learners’ English proficiency gains in EFL contexts.