It was a true honor and privilege to be the PRTESOL president this year. It has been a challenging and culminating professional experience after more than 40 years of teaching and about 30 as a member of PRTESOL.  Our Board is thankful for letting us serve you, host you at the 38^th Annual Convention, and share with you at the state of the art Puerto Rico Convention Center in San Juan. We had interesting and engaging presenters, keynote speakers, exhibitors’ materials, and entertainment. This most important and inspiring theme “Integrating Ethics, Values and Life Skills in the Teaching of English” led us to ponder on the values, ethics and life skills so much needed in our world today.

We are certain that most of our educators do teach values, and ethics in the classroom. How do they do it? By sharing with their students their love of learning and by teaching them how to think and make decisions.  But there is more to be done and we are certain that you will take the lead in doing it.  We hope our Convention provided   those that attended with more ideas and tools to do so more effectively. The integration of Ethics, Values and Life Skills is an important mission of all educators so we can engage our students in learning, sharing and becoming fruitful citizens .  We, ESL teachers, have a double load of work for teaching a language that is not in its natural environment, and for teaching it with love and passion.

In a survey, recently published by El Nuevo Día newspaper about the most respected leaders in Puerto Rico, teachers were rated by the general public, higher than physicians and lawyers and other leaders in Puerto Rico. That is something to be proud. Thumbs up for teachers!!!  

I feel quite very proud of what we have achieved this year in PRTESOL. These are some of those achievements:

• Had a well-attended and successful Convention.

• A successful summer Institute on technology in June.

• Practically all the chapters had successful regional conferences and some had an additional activity.

• Developed the first PRTESOL Position Statement on the teaching of English in Puerto Rico.

• Took a stand against the moratorium placed on the UPR -Rio Piedras Elementary English Teacher Education Program.

• Held the first PRTESOL Retreat for the training of the new Board members.

• Created the first organizational brochure to promote our organization.

• Membership was increased.

• PRTESOL Board members visited the legislature to promote our organization and Convention.

• Met with the Governor’s Education Advisor, to advocate for our organization’s goals and objectives and support for our Convention.

• A YouTube channel was created.

• We kept you informed through the PRTESOL website and our Facebook page about all our activities which was constantly updated with the information.

• Three bulletins from the Board were also sent out to keep you informed.

• Three PRTESOLGRAMS full of interesting professional articles were published and mailed to our members.

• Created a video of the first PRTESOL president and the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award recipient, Paquita Ayala and posted it on our website.

• Collaborated with the English program Director to write a proposal for teachers and facilitators to attend the convention this year. So this year we had about 80 DE educators attending the Convention sponsored by the English Program.

• For the first time our Convention plenary keynote speakers and the annual PRTESOL meeting were live streamed through the PRTESOL website, giving access to all our members that could not attend the Convention.

• Email communication was sent to all the institutions of higher education and many private schools about Convention with good results.

• Promoted our Convention in the Virgin Islands. As a result, we had a delegation of nine Virgin Island English educators attending.

• All the English Teacher educators of the UPR School of Education attended the PRTESOL Convention and were sponsored by UPR.

• The National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) leaders attended and made a presentation in an effort to establish an alliance with PRTESOL . They met with me, Dr. Naomi Vega and our 2012 President, Dr. Evelyn Lugo.

This great responsibility as a leader of your organization is almost over and I am proud of what has been accomplished, but the mission is not completely over.  I will continue on the Board of Directors as past president working closely with the 2012 PRTESOL President  Dr. Evelyn Lugo and Vice President, Prof Estella Marquez in the great challenges ahead organizing and hosting the Caribbean  Basin and Central American Regional Conference and a TESOL International Symposium. We hope to see you there in 2012.

Wishing you many blessings in the new year and may you have a well deserved vacation full of peace and joy.

Dr. Josué Alejandro
2011 PRTESOL President