Professional Associations

Meet professionals from around the world, learn about jobs, get new ideas, and share your own work with a wide audience -- get involved with a professional organization! All these organizations encourage student participants. Find the one that best fits your interests and get connected.

Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) is an international association. The annual convention attracts thousands of ESOL teachers for presentations, networking, and book and software exhibits. Check out the many benefits of TESOL membership, including their employment database.

Oregon's TESOL association (ORTESOL ) is a great way to start getting involved with the professional community. Members include many PSU alumni and current students. ORTESOL runs an annual fall conference and other educational events, and posts job opportunities in Oregon. The ORTESOL conference and the ORTESOL Journal are good venues for sharing your work with statewide audiences.

The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) has advanced the study of linguistics since 1924. The LSA runs an annual conference and sponsors summer institutes, where you can delve deeply into a topic with a well known scholar for a month. The flagship journal of the LSA, Language, publishes research in linguistic theory and subfields of linguistics.

The American Association for Applied Linguistics (AAAL) works to advance understanding of language-related issues in society and improve conditions related to them. AAAL is well known for its annual convention. The large poster session can provide an excellent venue for first sharing your research, and the Graduate Student Council sponsors events especially in support of graduate students.

The practicum was enormously formative for me in terms of preparing me to teach and giving me the experiences, but also the knowledge and the terminology to talk about my teaching and frame it in a way that ultimately helped me acquire a Fulbright. I’ve also created a network of faculty and other students and people that I can rely on as sources of information to constantly improve myself as a professional. That’s something I imagine doing while I’m abroad. --Jake Malstrom, MA TESOL '19