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Dear COTSEAL Members and
Colleagues,
I have been with COTSEAL for quite a few years, first as a non-member who
was looking for a venue to present my ideas on Vietnamese teaching and later
on as a member attracted to an organization that provides one with an
impressive level of professionalism as well as a rich sense of camaraderie.
I must confess that without either of these qualities, I would have quietly
gone back to my own niche and immersed myself once again in the solitude and
immediacy of language teaching.
As it happened, out of curiosity I came to our organization, and found many
opportunities to research and discuss my favorite topics and to work with
other fellow teachers/researchers. Gradually, the inchoate ties between us
were strengthened through mutual respect and admiration, and eventually, I
could not help but experience a sense of commitment, having absorbed the
COTSEAL officers' dedication by osmosis for so long.
But in addition to these more personal thoughts, let me say a few words
about the paramount role that I envision JSEALT will play in the coming
years.
Making use of the support and technology that we are being offered through
SEAsite at Northern Illinois University, our JSEALT Editor, Dr. Carol
Compton, has helped create our e-journal. She and I believe that the
e-journal is a paramount tool whose time has come. It will be the forum for
many of us, if not all, to gather around and share our ideas and expertise
more frequently - a powerful addition to our conferences, which for
practical reasons can only be organized annually and have not been able to
see a congregation of large numbers of our members and colleagues.
If we explore the JSEALT web site, we can see that Carol has laid the much
needed groundwork for the e-journal - quite a feat in itself - and given us
a vision of the direction of growth for our organization: refereed papers,
book reviews, multimedia reviews, and language reports, among other
features. Let us all lend her a helping hand and make that vision become a
reality.
For the first time, we will constantly have invaluable resources for the
teaching of Southeast Asian languages at our fingertips, enabling us to
expand our collective knowledge of the field and helping us to hone our
professionalism. But that is not all, as I hope our e-journal will also aid
new teachers by giving them an opportunity to hear from those of us who have
spent our entire lives instructing learners of Southeast Asian languages.
Above all, I hope to see the participation of all of us in this important
endeavor in various capacities, according to our own professional needs and
time commitment. Together we can do much more for our enthusiastic learners
and also for our own worthy careers.
Best regards
Bac Hoai Tran
University of California, Berkeley
bact@calmail.berkeley.edu |
