Foreign language (FL) aptitude generally refers to a specific talent for learning a foreign or second language (L2). After experiencing a long period of marginalized interest, FL aptitude research in recent years has witnessed renewed enthusiasm across the disciplines of educational psychology, second language acquisition (SLA) and cognitive neuroscience. This paper sets out to offer a historical and an updated account of this recent progress in FL aptitude theory development and research. As its subtitle indicates, the paper centres on three major issues: following the introduction and clarification of basic concepts, Section 1 traces the early conceptions of FL aptitude dominated by John Carroll's pioneering work. Section 2 summarizes and examines more recent theoretical perspectives and FL aptitude models proposed by researchers from multiple disciplines that have significantly broadened the conventional research traditions associated with Carroll's original conception. Based on the research synthesis of current FL aptitude models, Section 3 suggests the directions FL aptitude theory and research might take in coming years. We conclude that a working memory perspective on FL aptitude presents one promising avenue for advance, as does the development of new aptitude tests to predict speed of automatization, implicit learning and greater control over an emerging language system. In addition, it is argued that issues of domain-specificity versus domain-generality for aptitude tests may lead to aptitude theory and research becoming more central in applied linguistics.

This state-of-the-art review is based on the fundamental idea that political economy should be adopted as a frame for research and discussion in applied linguistics as part of a general social turn which has taken hold in the field over the past three decades. It starts with Susan Gal's (1989) early call for such a move in sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology, that is, for ‘investigations of the links among language structure, language use, and political economy’ (Gal 1989: 346), and moves from a consideration of theoretical bases to the discussion and critique of concrete examples of research. Thus, after a fairly detailed discussion of political economy and the key constructs neoliberalism and social class, the paper moves to a review of research in three broad areas. First, it focuses on how issues and constructs from political economy have been incorporated into discussions of education, work and leisure by a growing number of sociolinguists. This is followed by a review of research which has focused specifically on social class as a central organising construct and then a third section on political economy in language teaching and learning research. The review ends with a consideration of the future of political economy in applied linguistics research.

After outlining why a systematic review of research in English medium instruction (EMI) in higher education (HE) is urgently required, we briefly situate the rapidly growing EMI phenomenon in the broader field of research in which content and language have been considered and compare HE research outputs with those from other phases of education. An in-depth review of 83 studies in HE documents the growth of EMI in different geographical areas. We describe studies which have investigated university teachers’ beliefs and those of students before attempting to synthesise the evidence on whether teaching academic subjects through the medium of English as a second language (L2) is of benefit to developing English proficiency without a detrimental effect on content learning. We conclude that key stakeholders have serious concerns regarding the introduction and implementation of EMI despite sometimes recognising its inevitability. We also conclude that the research evidence to date is insufficient to assert that EMI benefits language learning nor that it is clearly detrimental to content learning. There are also insufficient studies demonstrating, through the classroom discourse, the kind of practice which may lead to beneficial outcomes. This insufficiency, we argue, is partly due to research methodology problems both at the micro and macro level.

This paper considers research and practice relating to listening in instructed classroom settings, limiting itself to what might be called unidirectional listening (Macaro, Graham & Vanderplank 2007) – in other words, where learners listen to a recording, a TV or radio clip or lecture, but where there is no communication back to the speaker(s). A review of the literature relating to such listening reveals a tendency for papers to highlight two features in their introductory lines: first, the acknowledged importance of listening as a skill underpinning second language (L2) acquisition more broadly, and second, the relative paucity of research into listening compared with the skills of speaking, reading or writing. In the last ten years or so, however, there has been a growth in the number of studies conducted in the field, as evidenced in Vandergrift's review in 2007 and Vanderplank's more recent overview (2013). Consequently, my view is that it is possible to identify from that research certain key principles in relation to listening within instructed settings, particularly regarding listening strategies.

Despite different epistemologies and assumptions, all theories in second language (L2) acquisition emphasize the centrality of context in understanding L2 acquisition. Under the assumption that language emerges from use in context, the cognitivist approach focuses on distributions and properties of input to infer both learning objects and process of acquisition. The interactionist approach views context more narrowly by analyzing how a particular linguistic item is attended and processed during a task-based interaction, and how it becomes intake as learning outcomes. For socially-oriented theories such as the sociocultural theory and language socialization, learning is fundamentally situated in context. Through mediated participation in learning as social practice, learners come to appropriate linguistic knowledge. Context is also fundamental in the complex, dynamic systems theory, which views learning as a non-linear, adaptive process emerging through an interaction of resources and individuals within a given context. All of these theories give the central power to context to describe and explain L2 learning. Context serves as the site where acquisition is examined. Context also helps explain the process and outcomes of acquisition.

There is current research consensus that second language (L2) learners are able to adequately comprehend general English written texts if they know 98% of the words that occur in the materials. This important finding prompts an important question: How much English vocabulary do English as a second language (ESL) learners need to know to achieve this crucial level of known-word coverage? A landmark paper by Nation (2006) provides a rather daunting answer. His exploration of the 98% figure through a variety of spoken and written corpora showed that knowledge of around 8,000–9,000 word families is needed for reading and 6,000–7,000 for listening. But is this the definitive picture? A recent study by van Zeeland & Schmitt (2012) suggests that 95% coverage may be sufficient for listening comprehension, and that this can be reached with 2,000–3,000 word families, which is much more manageable. Getting these figures right for a variety of text modalities, genres and conditions of reading and listening is essential. Teachers and learners need to be able to set goals, and as Cobb's study of learning opportunities (2007) has shown, coverage percentages and their associated vocabulary knowledge requirements have important implications for the acquisition of new word knowledge through exposure to comprehensible L2 input. This article proposes approximate replications of Nation (2006), van Zeeland & Schmitt (2012), and Cobb (2007), in order to clarify these key coverage and size figures.

That learners who want to develop good pragmatically-appropriate speaking skills in a language also need to develop good pronunciation is beyond dispute, and yet research continues to report that both areas still have low visibility in the curriculum and are often treated as poor relations in the classroom. Many teachers are still wary of what they see as specialist areas, a perspective that encourages their neglect in the curriculum, in assessment and in teacher training programmes. In this plenary I go back to basics and focus on what learners need to accomplish outside the classroom with the language they are learning. Drawing on studies that have explored the communicative needs of immigrants to Australia from language backgrounds other than English, I will illustrate the importance of both pronunciation and pragmatics in their lives. I will then consider the implications for how we can approach both skills proactively in the classroom in an integrated way that is capable of developing students’ repertoire of speaking skills for effective and appropriate use outside.

In 1998, Wolfe-Quintero, Inagaki & Kim published a monograph describing measures used in assessing writing development. Despite more recent research on linguistic development (e.g., Bulté & Housen 2012; Verspoor, Schmid & Xu 2012; Connor-Linton & Polio 2014), the volume is still a valuable resource and good starting point for anyone wanting to select measures of fluency, accuracy, and complexity for second language (L2) writing research. The volume, however, was limited to research on language development within the context of writing, and this is certainly one way to think about writing development. A recent edited volume by Manchón (2012), however, has greatly expanded conceptions of writing development showing that it involves much more that linguistic development, for example, genre knowledge (Tardy 2012) and goal setting (Cumming 2012) as well. Writing development can also focus on various aspects of the writing process and how writers’ change their approach to text production as they become more expert writers (e.g., Sasaki 2004; Nicolás-Conesa, Roca de Larios & Coyle 2014). This expansion of focus, of course, makes development more difficult to define.

Motivation is recognized as a vital component in successful second language learning, and has been the subject of intensive research in recent decades. This review focuses on a growing branch of this research effort, that which examines the motivational effects of language teaching. This is pertinent because, despite enhanced mobility and expanding access to foreign languages online, most learners’ early encounters with the second language (L2) still take place in classrooms, and these encounters may shape attitudes and determine students’ willingness to invest further in the L2. Four main types of research are reviewed: first, that which deliberately seeks to identify and evaluate strategies to motivate L2 learners; second, that which has tested the validity of psychological theories of motivation by applying their precepts in L2 classrooms; third, that which assesses the motivational effects of a pedagogical innovation or intervention; fourth, research on what has been too often the unintended outcome of language education, namely learner demotivation. The review highlights the complexity of the relationship between teaching and learner motivation but an attempt is made to articulate some emerging verities and to point towards the most promising avenues for future research.

The production-oriented approach (POA) has been developed over ten years to overcome the weaknesses in English instruction in tertiary education in Mainland China. The POA tries to integrate the strengths of Western instructional approaches with Chinese contextual features and consists of three components: (a) teaching principles; (b) teaching hypotheses; and (c) teacher-mediated teaching processes. The teaching principles include ‘learning-centered’, ‘learning-using integration’, and ‘whole-person education’, and the teaching hypotheses are ‘output-driven’, ‘input-enabled’, and ‘selective learning’. The teaching processes contain three phases, each mediated by the teacher: motivating, enabling, and assessing. The three principles set guidelines for the other two components; the three hypotheses serve as a theoretical basis for the teaching process; the three-phase teaching process reflects and illustrates the principles while testing the hypotheses.