First Latin American TESOL Leadership Workshop
Panama City, November 16-19, 2015
Trainers, RELO’s, and affiliate leaders at closing ceremony
The 3-day workshop was delivered by John Segota and Sarah Sahr, TESOL International Association Associate Executive Director, and Director of Education Programs respectively. The workshop, sponsored by the US Department of State, focused on the purposes for having an ELT organization, the role of the board of directors, and the importance of leadership development/succession, and organization management. It also highlighted the relevance of program development and communications management to help make associations visible in the community.
Leaders form 12 Latin American TESOL affiliates participated in this workshop: ANUPI, ARTESOL, Asocopi, BrazTESOL Curitiba, BrazTESOL Manaus, EcuaTESOL, MexTESOL, NicaTESOL, PanTESOL, TESOL Chile, UruTESOL, and VenTESOL. RELO’s and RELOA’s from Mexico, Lima, Santiago and Sao Paulo also participated in the workshop. They shared commonalities and best practices, and explored ways to deal with affiliates’ weaknesses more effectively. They also designed an action plan and an implementation timeline to work on their weaknesses. Participants worked on this task together with the RELO and other participants from the same region.
The workshop provided participants with great tools to reflect upon so as to help them manage affiliates better.