TESOL’s Awards and Grants Program: The Experience of Two Award Winners
Valerie Borchelt, Programs Coordinator, TESOL, vborchelt@tesol.org
Lucia Santos and Isabela Villas Boas of Brasilia, Brazil, first heard about TESOL's Awards and Grants Program through a flier they received, but dismissed the awards as being not for them because of the number of successful professionals in the EFL field. In fact, when they received the letter congratulating them on being awarded the TOEFL Board Award for International Participation at TESOL, they didn't even remember applying, because when submitting their proposal ("Action Research Changing Teachers' Attitudes Toward Corrective Feedback") online, all they had done was check the 'yes' box that asked if they were eligible for the award. Now Lucia and Isabela are actively encouraging their colleagues to apply for TESOL's awards and grants by giving a presentation on tips for writing TESOL proposals and on how to become a recipient of a TESOL grant or award. From their experience, they now assert that any teacher can frame his or her focus of expertise into an acceptable proposal and receive recognition for it.
Looking back on their experience, Lucia and Isabela feel honored to have been recognized by a respected international institution and they agreed that the pride their coworkers felt in having their colleagues receive such an award was an award in itself. They also were proud to be able to represent their country and their language institute, Casa Thomas Jefferson, by having their research presentation accepted and presented as a discussion group.
As for the convention experience, although both had participated in previous conventions, attending the San Antonio convention as award winners added to the experience. As award winners, Isabela and Lucia interacted heavily with other award winners and, in doing so, reaped the benefit of learning more about other awards offered by TESOL. At the same time, they were able to share teaching experiences with teachers of English from all over the world.
A favorite memory from the convention for the pair occurred while volunteering to sell raffle tickets to benefit TESOL's Awards and Grants Program. Thanks to this opportunity to interact with so many people, Isabela and Lucia learned much about the American culture and increased the depth of their English skills by learning several ways of refusing or accepting an offer.
Overall, for Lucia and Isabela, attending the convention as recipients of an award encouraged them in their teaching profession. More specifically, a plenary presentation they attended encouraged them as EFL teachers to "use the English language for communication and teach [their] students that the target norm should not be that of the native speaker of English but that of the expert user of English as a lingua franca."
Lucia Santos has been a teacher and a teacher developer at the Casa Thomas Jefferson (CTJ) in Brasilia, Brazil, for over 20 years and was CTJ deputy coordinator for 12 years. She now serves as the CTJ main branch coordinator. She holds an MA in applied linguistics from the Universidade de Brasília in Brazil and participates in the organization and publication of the magazine Desempenho. Her main field of interest is English phonetics and phonology, with a major focus on segmental features.
Isabela Villas Boas has a BA in journalism and an MA in TESL from Arizona State University in the United States. She has worked at the Casa Thomas Jefferson (CTJ), a binational center in Brasília, Brazil, for 18 years, where she has taught learners of all ages and levels. She is currently a pedagogical consultant responsible for overseeing the supervisory work of all courses. She is also responsible for CTJ's Teachers' Development Courses. She recently designed and undertook supervision of the Public School Teachers' Development Program, a program sponsored by the U.S. Embassy and Macmillan Publishers, and Special Book Services. This program aims to improve the teaching of English in public schools in Brasília. She has presented various workshops and papers at local and national conferences. Her major interests are writing, assessment, and grammar.
NNEST Newsletter October 2005 Volume 7 Number 2: Table of Contents
