TFSOL Today--A View from the Center.

The article focuses on the paper presented at the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages Convention, March 1969 in the U.S. The task as the Center saw it involved not only collecting and disseminating information on as many aspects of the field as possible, and acting as liaison among institutions, individuals, and government agencies, but, going a step further, anticipating new needs and rising demands and trying to mobilize existing resources or helping to create new machinery to meet them. To do this it was sometimes necessary for the Center to take responsibility in the initial stages of a new project or program, as for instance, its role in the creation of the Test of English as a Foreign Language Program. The aims of the Conference have been to continue the exchange of information in the area of second language learning. The Center and the British Council have also built up perhaps the most comprehensive libraries in this field. The task in not complete. New developments within the U. S., chief among them the increased attention to domestic problems in this field, the expansion of American political and economic interest abroad, the rising demand for English overseas, steadily increasing local interest and activity in many parts of the world, make it extremely important not only to keep open and strengthen already existing lines of communication but to look to new ones that need to be opened.