Mystery solved: Who are TESOL faculty at US universities?

Abstract

It is important for college students and future TESOL teachers to see someone like them among their instructors and mentors. Diverse future teachers who are trained in TESOL might be attracted to the profession based on who their teacher educators are in terms of gender, multilingualism, international studies, and/or work experience. The question for this study is: Who are TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages) faculty at US universities? Data on faculty who are specialists and in charge of TESOL programs was collected from publicly available university websites, specifically from 209 higher education institutions from a random sample of 34 US states. The data collected includes 511 TESOL faculty. Descriptive statistics paint a portrait of who TESOL faculty in the US are.