Letter from the Editors
Khanh-Duc Kuttig, University of Siegen,Siegen, Germany
Bridget Schvarcz, Afeka Academic College of Engineering, Tel-Aviv, Israel
Vu Tran-Thanh, Durham University, Durham, UK
Dear Colleagues,
Welcome once again to another issue of the Teacher Educator Interest Section Newsletter. As volunteers, the journey in getting this newsletter together has been one of planning, collaboration and reflection. With the move from the previous newsletter platform to the new blog-style platform on myTESOL, we have had to reconsider our overall design and what we wanted to achieve with the newsletter. Furthermore, after 3 years as editor, we had to think about how much of ‘news’ we were actually sharing, since in the last nine issues we had published four academic articles covering various aspects of teacher education. Change is in the air, dear reader, and stay with us as our TEIS newsletter continues to evolve.
In this varied issue, to spotlight some of TESOL Association’s awards and return to the more news-like nature of a newsletter, we have contributions from TESOL’s 2024 Teacher of the Year, Luis Pentón Herrera and winners of The Ron Chang Lee Award for Excellence in Classroom Technology, Rachel Toncelli and Ilka Kostka. And as we continue our journey around the world, we have insights on teacher-led professional development and learning in Latin America and an educator based in Vietnam shares why teacher educators should make it a point to attend professional conferences.
At TEIS, we are committed to TESOL’s DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Access) values, and we are proud to have once again produced a newsletter that represents the diversity of our teacher educator community - both professionally and geographically. We strive to continue to increase participation and engagement with global communities of teacher educators, and we hope that you, dear reader, will consider sharing your narratives with us and the wider TEIS community. We accept contributions on a rolling basis, and if you have a story to share, just reach out to us!
This issue is a special one for Bridget Schvarcz and Khanh-Duc Kuttig - it is their 10th together, but undoubtedly not their last.
As we continue to evolve in delivering engaging content and insightful global perspectives, we hope you enjoy this issue as much as we have enjoyed putting it together.
Best wishes,
Bridget Schvarcz, Khanh-Duc Kuttig & Vu Tran-Thanh
Khanh-Duc Kuttig teaches English language in the Department of English at the University of Siegen. Her work focuses on language development in pre-service teacher education and she is currently building a corpus of classroom interaction as part of her doctoral project at the Heidelberg University of Education in Germany. She is currently Chair of TESOL’s Professional Development Professional Council.
Bridget Schvarcz, PhD, is the head of the English Unit at Afeka Academic College of Engineering and lecturer in the MA in TESOL program at Tel Aviv University as well as a teacher educator for the Israeli Ministry of Education, Department of Professional Development of Teaching Staff. She is the immediate past Chair (2020-23) of the English Teachers’ Association of Israel – a proud TESOL affiliate – and currently serves as the association’s vice chair.
Vu Tran-Thanh is a doctoral researcher at the School of Education, Durham University, UK - under the scholarship of the Economic and Social Research Council of the UK Government. Prior to his doctoral studies, Tran Thanh Vu worked as a high school English teacher and university lecturer in Ho Chi Minh City. He founded and directs TESOL Research Collaboration Network, a learning and supportive community for early-career researchers in language education in Vietnam.