Member Moment: Ndeye Diallo

There is a multitude of benefits from which I gained as a member of the TESOL organization, from having the opportunity to network and collaborate with other TESOL professionals to working under the guidance of past chairs who took me under their professional wings. These experiences have made me a better educator and a more prepared ELT professional. They provided me with the tools necessary to serve my multilingual learners and paved the way for me to become more confident and break through as a TESOL professional of African descent.

What has been your most significant achievement in or contribution to the TESOL field?

My most significant achievement in the TESOL field is joining the leadership team of the English as a Foreign Language Interest Section (EFLIS) as the current chair for 2019. I was able to plan, organize and moderate sessions during TESOL Convention 2019. This year, I helped run five webinars for global EFLIS members and shared best practices with the ELT community at large.

More specific instances of these experiences and contribution are as follows:

• I presented a session with the “Nonnative” English Speaker Teachers Interest Section entitled, “Global TESOL Professionals of African Descent: Negotiating Identity and Inequity.”
• Moderated an InterSection session by the EFLIS, Social Responsibility Interest Section, and Bilingual-Multilingual Education Interest Section entitled, “Preserving the Tower of Babel: Language Diversity as Social Justice.”
• Facilitated the EFLIS and Intercultural Communication Interest Section presentation entitled, “Intercultural Communication and Competence Education Models in the EFL Context.”
• Lastly, as chair, I was the moderator of our academic session, called “Differentiated Instruction and Assessment in EFL Contexts: Research, Practice, Recommendations.”

Presenters:

• Yilin Sun, PhD; Past President, TESOL (2013–2016); Seattle Colleges, USA
• Deborah Short, PhD; President, TESOL (2019–2022); Director, Academic Language Research & Training, Arlington, VA, USA
• Juliana Diaz, Institucion Universitaria Colombo Americana- UNICA, Bogota Colombia
• Ke Xu; Chair, TESOL Professional Publications Council; Past Chair, TESOL EFLIS; Borough of Manhattan Community College, City University of New York, USA
• Eddy White, PhD; Assessment Coordinator, Center for English as a Second Language (CESL); Associate Professor, College of Humanities, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA