Spezzini receives inaugural lifetime achievement award at AMTESOL conference

University of Alabama at Birmingham Susan Spezzini, Ph.D.School of Education faculty were recently recognized at the 2024 Alabama-Mississippi Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages conference, highlighting years of service and scholarship.

The 2024 conference emphasized innovative approaches to teaching, researching, collaborating and advocating for English language learners in Alabama and Mississippi. The UAB School of Education’s ESL program played a significant role, with three faculty members serving on the affiliate board and active participation in various events, including faculty presentations and lifetime achievement awards.

Susan Spezzini, Ph.D.; Josephine Prado, Ph.D.; Lori Edmonds, Ph.D.; and Julie Flannery, Ph.D., presented their research at this conference, with 38 percent of the conference speakers being faculty, students or alumni of the UAB ESL program. 

Spezzini, a full professor in UAB’s ESL teacher education program, received AMTESOL’s inaugural lifetime achievement award for serving the Alabama-Mississippi teaching communities since 2003. This award recognizes Spezzini’s uninterrupted service on the AMTESOL board since 2005. In addition to serving in numerous leadership roles — including affiliate president, she chaired AMTESOL’s 2016 conference and its 2017 Southeast TESOL conference. Spezzini also supported 13 ESL educators from Alabama and Mississippi by encouraging them to write chapters for a book — “Teaching English in Global Contexts: Language, Learners, and Learning” (2023) — that she edited as a Fulbright Scholar. Now in her final year of service with AMTESOL, Spezzini is mentoring the chairs of the next AMTESOL conference — Montgomery, Alabama, from Jan. 16-18, 2025.

In addition to bestowing this inaugural award, AMTESOL established the Susan Spezzini stipend to support rural teachers in attending the organization’s annual conferences, something Spezzini is passionate about continuing.

“It has been my honor to help AMTESOL grow and reach out to increasingly more ESL professionals over the past 22 years,” Spezzini said. “English learners of all ages, from preschool through college, need the support of well-trained ESL teachers who are actively involved in a professional organization like AMTESOL. I am especially excited about the stipend to help ESL teachers in rural schools to attend AMTESOL conferences in the future.”