One day over forty years ago, a member of the newly formed professional organization, MEXTESOL, came up with a wonderful idea of publishing a journal of articles related to ESL/EFL for our members. Others listened and responded to this idea. It was original since at the time it was not normal for small, national ELT organizations to publish and least of all in a journal. So our founders got organized and in 1976 the MEXTESOL Journal was born. There are some specifics that are not quite clear, such as whose idea the MEXTESOL Journal was or why people decided to create it, yet we do know who the editors were according to Volume 1, Number 2 of the MEXTESOL Journal. The following shows this information:
Editor: Eugene S. Long, University of the Americas, Cholula, Puebla
Associate Editor: Josephine Claudio, Instituto Mexicano Norteamericano de Relaciones Culturales, Mexico City
Review Editors: Linda Anthony and Penelope Johnson, Instituto Harmon Hall, Mexico City
Chalk Talk Editor: Paul Davies, Instituto Anglo-Mexicano de Cultura, Puebla, Puebla
Copy Editor: Barbara Langworthy, Instituto Mexicano Norteamericano de Relaciones Culturales, Mexico City
Managing Editor of Advertising: Francine Marasco, Instituto Tecnológico Regional de Tlalnepantla, Mexico City
Assistant Managing Editor: Gloria Nelson, Instituto Mexicano Norteamericano de Relaciones Culturales, Mexico City
Next year, 2016 will be MEXTESOL Journal’s 40th Anniversary. Besides trying to solve the mystery of how MJ came into being, we plan to have a year full of special events for all of you. There will be special invited articles in the Journal itself, and we plan to have a number of special events at the MEXTESOL Convention in Monterrey from October 27-30, 2016. Mark these dates on your calendar and be ready to come by our booth.
In preparation for our 40th volume, we have been working hard to update the archive of past issues on our website (www.mextesol.net). Although we are missing some issues, we now have uploaded over a hundred volumes and each one has five to ten articles. The most recent issues can be read online. Articles in older issues are can be downloaded as .pdf files. All are searchable so if you are interested in finding articles about reading comprehension or want some pronunciation activities, just use the search box on the website.
The archive covers forty years of development in ELT. We all know that technology has changed immensely in the last forty years, but you might be surprised at how many other aspects of ELT have also changed. Our archive can take you back to the beginnings of communicative language teaching or how grammar was taught forty years ago.
One of our major problems is that over the years a number of issues have disappeared. They are not in the MEXTESOL office and the editors do not have them. The most important issue is the first and we are looking for it. We have made a list of missing journals (left columns, below) and possibly missing issue numbers (right column, below). In some cases we do not know if an issue is missing since, for example, we have issue numbers 1 and 2 of a volume, but we do not know how many issues were published since historically there are between one and four in each volume.
We ask you to join our search for these issues. Take a look in your own bookshelves and in those of your school or university libraries to see if any of them just might be there. You could also ask your librarians if they might have been stored in another part of the library. If you find any of these issues, please communicate with JoAnn Miller (miller@room20.org). Any findings are greatly appreciated.
We would also like to invite you to participate in our 40th Anniversary with ideas, articles, or reviews and to join us at the 43rd MEXTESOL International Convention in Monterrey from October 27-30, 2016. Be a part of our celebration of forty years!
