The annual TESOL convention is always a multicultural experience for me, meeting people who come from all different parts of the world, each of whom represents one puzzle piece in the overwhelming whole that TESOL is. The opening plenary, given by Dr. Suresh Canagarajah, focused on the diverse communities of practice that are a part of TESOL, and on their legitimate place in the TESOL community. His plenary was interspersed with quotes from Etienne Wenger’s seminal work, Communities of Practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. His modesty, his questioning nature, and his deep understanding of the intersecting worlds of English, are in my opinion part of his greatness.

Dr. Canagarajah provided me with a wonderful introduction to my own presentation, Challenging Assumptions: Tools for TESOL Teacher Education. The topic of assumptions, their sources, and their effects on choices in the classroom, in teamwork, and in our world in general has intrigued me for many years, and is the subject of both my masters and doctoral research.

I immigrated to Israel in the late 1970s. Israel is a country of new immigrants, and as such, I encountered others who had immigrated from a myriad of places, all of whom carried with them diverse assumptions about the way the world should work. My own assumptions influenced my work as an English teacher and head of department. I found myself expecially challenged by in trying to understand the 15 teachers on the faculty who came from at least six different countries and were trained with different methodologies and held different beliefs about teaching and learning language.

I hope that this intercultural sensitivity, developed as part of the necessity of understanding my colleagues, will allow me to continue to question and challenge my own assumptions!