The 2026 TESOL Convention & Expo is arriving next month! In this piece, we highlight our activities at the upcoming convention taking place in Salt Lake City, USA.

TIRF will host its spring Board meeting on Tuesday, March 24^th. The TIRF Board meetings brings together the majority of Trustees in person, but those Board colleagues who are unable to travel to Salt Lake City will attend online. In addition to the typical reports from TIRF officers, chairs, and committees, Board colleagues will focus on TIRF’s suite of programmatic offerings, prioritizing its revised Research Topics, and other types of activities to related to the Foundation’s various goals. We will provide our stakeholders with outcomes after the meeting.

This year’s TIRF “colleague session” at TESOL 2026 provides an opportunity to engage with TIRF Board members and TIRF partners. Our session, entitled “Unmasking AI: What Language Teachers Need to Know,” will take place on Wednesday, March 25^th from 10:00 to 11:15am in the Salt Palace Convention Center’s (SPCC) Ballroom C. The abstract for the session follows below:

TIRF and its global partners explore AI’s role in English language education. Presenters share guiding principles, practical tools, and strategies for teaching, materials development, feedback, and assessment. In this interactive session, they address tensions between teacher agency and AI, while engaging participants in mapping responsible adoption pathways for TESOL’s future.

The presenters of the TIRF session include Onur Ural Burns (University of California, Riverside), Xiangying Jiang (Duolingo), Joyce Kling (TIRF), Nick Saville (TIRF), and Justin Shewell (TESOL International Association). We hope you will join us for our engaging and interactive presentation.

In addition to TIRF’s colleague session, two TIRF awardees – Jon Malone (2023 TIRF DDG Awardee; English Maryland Institute) and Grace Davis (2024 TIRF Bailey Awardee; EnGen) will co-present their session, “From Research to Impact: Recent TIRF Awardees Shaping English Education,” on Thursday, March 26^th from 9:30am to 10:15am. The presentation will be held in the SPCC Ballroom E. Their abstract is shared below:

Recent TIRF Bailey and DDG awardees share research-based perspectives with direct implications for classroom and program practice. Attendees will gain practical strategies and fresh insights into emerging priorities in global English education — including ways to strengthen learner engagement, equity, and innovation in their own local contexts.

We are looking forward to seeing you in Salt Lake City!