Over the past several months, TIRF has been sharing information about the TESOL-TIRF Research Symposium which was held in Monterey, California earlier this month. Now that the event has taken place, we want to provide our readers with a recap about the event.
As reported earlier, the Symposium featured alternating sessions between panel presentations and breakout groups. The topics of the three panel presentations were (1) TIRF’s Research Priorities and TESOL’s Research Agenda; (2) Formulating Your Research Questions; and (3) Connecting Research to Policy and Practice. The three breakout sessions that were offered reflected the previous panel’s topic. Therefore, these sessions’ topics were (1) Research Topics; (2) Research Methodology Choices; and (3) Making Connections. To view the Symposium’s schedule, please click here.
After the event, feedback was collected from participants. The results of the survey show that attendees generally found the symposium to be helpful to their research mentoring needs and to their careers. Insights were also provided by participants that will help to inform any potential Research Symposium offerings in the future.
We hope to continue to build upon the momentum we gained earlier this month. As a result of the event in Monterey, it is evident that there are individuals in our profession who desire to learn more about conducting research in their individual contexts and for various reasons. Although we have taken important first steps toward building an inclusive and sustainable research community in language education, there is still much more work to be done.
The TIRF team will continue to work with TESOL to promote research mentoring and network. Future developments will be highlighted in this newsletter and on our website and Facebook page. Many thanks to everyone who contributed to the event, whether it was as an attendee, a volunteer, a presenter, a moderator, an organizer, and/or as a promoter!
To see an album of photos from the Research Symposium, please visit TIRF’s Facebook page at this link – and be sure to “Like” us! And as a friendly reminder to our readers, TIRF Trustees travel to conferences and meetings at no expense to the Foundation. We are grateful for their ongoing support of TIRF in this way.
