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Teaching Forum > Volume
41 > Issue
1
Introduction: You Never Know What the Future Will Bring
William P. Ancker
Preparing this issue of English Teaching Forum has been
especially rewarding for me because it is connected to the beginning
of my career in English language teaching. I could never have imagined
that two people I became acquainted with in graduate school, I would
work with in a professional journal twenty years later.
The first connection is to a classmate. Kent Markle and I graduated
in 1982 from the University of Arizona with MA in TESL degrees.
We kept in touch intermittently over the years, but only recently
did I find out that in addition to his career as an English teacher,
Kent is an accomplished blues musician who has played at numerous
festivals and clubs and on studio recordings. When blues music was
chosen as the topic for a feature article in the Forum, he was a
natural to write it.
The second connection is to an author. Books and articles by professor
Marianne Celce-Murcia of the University of California at Los Angeles
were on the required reading list for many of the classes I took
in graduate school. One of the books she edited, Teaching English
as a Second or Foreign Language, we pored over because it covered
so much in the field. (It's now in the third edition and still has
a familiar apple on the cover!) When I began editing articles for
this issue, I was delighted to see one by Marianne, an educator
whose work I have admired for many years.
Perhaps you have had similar unexpected encounters with the past,
such as when you meet a former student on the street or see a former
colleague at a conference. It can be exciting and heartwarming to
find out what the future has become. I hope that you have the opportunity
to see the past and present united and to reflect on your experiences
and accomplishments. I also hope you have achieved things that you
could never have imagined when your career began. May this be a
rewarding issue for you, too! — WPA
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