We provide an exhaustive review of studies in the relatively new domain of research on the influence of orthography on second language (L2) phonological acquisition. While language teachers have long recognized the importance of written input—in addition to spoken input—on learners’ development, until this century there was very little systematic research investigating the relationship between orthography and L2 phonological acquisition. Here, we review studies of the influence of written input on L2 phonological awareness, phoneme perception, the acquisition of phonological processes and syllable structure, and the pronunciation and recognition of words. We elaborate the variables that appear to moderate written input effects: (1) whether or not a novel phonological contrast is systematically represented by the L2 writing system (systematicity); (2) whether some or all of the L2 graphemes are familiar to learners from the L1 (familiarity); (3) for familiar graphemes, whether the native language (L1) and the L2 employ the same grapheme-phoneme correspondences (congruence); and (4) the ability of learners to perceive an auditory contrast that is systematically represented in writing (perceptibility). We conclude by calling for future research on the pedagogical implications of this body of work, which has thus far received very little attention by researchers.

The rise of English as a global language has led scholars to call for a paradigm shift in the field of English language teaching (ELT) to match the new sociolinguistic landscape of the twenty-first century. In recent years a considerable amount of classroom-based research and language teacher education (LTE) research has emerged to investigate these proposals in practice. This paper outlines key proposals for change in language teaching from the related fields of World Englishes (WE), English as a lingua franca (ELF), English as an international language (EIL), and Global Englishes, and critically reviews the growing body of pedagogical research conducted within these domains. Adopting the methodology of a systematic review, 58 empirical articles published between 2010 and 2020 were shortlisted, of which 38 were given an in-depth critical review and contextualized within a wider body of literature. Synthesis of classroom research suggests a current lack of longitudinal designs, an underuse of direct measures to explore the effects of classroom interventions, and under-representation of contexts outside of university language classrooms. Synthesis of teacher education research suggests future studies need to adopt more robust methodological designs which measure the effects of Global Englishes content on teacher beliefs and pedagogical practices both before and throughout the programme, and after teachers return to the classroom.

This state-of-the-art review focuses on translanguaging in education. In recent years, scholars have engaged in the conceptualisation of ‘translanguaging’ (e.g. García, 2009; García & Wei, 2014a; Wei, 2018) as well as in conducting a vast and ever-increasing number of empirical studies, in educational contexts in particular. This article aims to take stock of the different ways in which ‘translanguaging’ has been conceptualised and of the ways in which it has been interpreted and applied in the study of multilingualism in diverse educational contexts across the globe. Our review exercise shows that ‘translanguaging’ has been conceptualised within two different approaches, which we propose to call the ‘fixed language approach’ and the ‘fluid languaging approach’. It further shows how ‘translanguaging’ has been studied within these two approaches in different educational contexts. We finish our review by calling for new methodologies adapted to a linguistics of fluidity and by considering critically translanguaging as a scholarly phenomenon.

Given the exponential growth in the popularity of early foreign language programs, coupled with an emphasis of evidence-based instruction, assessing young learners’ (YLs) foreign language abilities has moved to center stage. This article canvasses how the field of assessing young learners of foreign languages has evolved over the past two decades. The review offers insights into how and why the field has developed, how constructs have been defined and operationalized, what language proficiency frameworks have been used, why children were assessed, what aspects of their foreign language proficiency have been assessed, who was involved in the assessment, and how the results have been used. By surveying trends in foreign language (FL) and content-based language learning programs involving children between the ages of 3 and 14, the article highlights research into assessment of and for learning, and critically discusses areas such as large-scale assessments and proficiency examinations, comparative and experimental studies, the impact of assessment, teachers’ beliefs and assessment practices, young learners’ test-taking strategies, age-appropriate tasks, alternative and technology-mediated assessment, as well as game-based assessments. The final section of the article highlights where more research is needed, thus outlining potential future directions for the field.

If we want to understand where we are now, we need to consider where we have come from. This statement constitutes the strongest rationale for the study of history. It is relevant to any field of enquiry and it is certainly true of the field of second language acquisition (SLA). As Larsen-Freeman (2018) wrote in her own historical account of SLA ‘it is important to understand ideas at the time they originated’ (p. 56). I would add that it is also important to understand how the ideas that motivated a field of enquiry at one time evolved into and were sometimes replaced by ideas later on.

In the initial sociocultural theory (SCT) timeline, Lantolf and Beckett (2009) surveyed a broad spectrum of research informed by sociocultural psychology as it was extended into the field of second language acquisition and language teaching. Since that time, the amount of research that has been published within the SCT framework has grown exponentially. With regard to the educational setting, two major strands of research have emerged; one that addresses pedagogical practice and the other that deals with assessment. The assessment strand, Dynamic Assessment, adheres to principles that emerge from the SCT concept of the Zone of Proximal Development and is the topic of a separate timeline (see Poehner & Wang, forthcoming). The pedagogical strand, the topic of the present article, is generally referred to as Concept-based Language Instruction (C-BLI), although in some publications the rubric Concept-based Instruction (CBI) is used. Unfortunately, the abbreviation of the alternative rubric has on more than one occasion been confused with content-based instruction, also abbreviated as CBI. We would like to suggest here that it would be better if SCT researchers were to adopt C-BLI to avoid misinterpretations going forward.

This timeline is concerned with Dynamic Assessment (henceforth, DA) as it has been taken up and elaborated in contexts involving the teaching, learning, and assessment of learners of second languages (L2s). DA is distinguished by its insistence that an individual's independent performance of assessment tasks reveals only part of his/her abilities, namely those that have completed their development at the time of the assessment; insights into abilities that have begun to emerge but have not yet fully developed can be determined according to an individual's responsiveness to particular kinds of support, referred to as mediation (e.g., reminders, leading questions, hints, provision of a model, feedback), offered during the assessment as difficulties arise (Haywood & Lidz, 2006). In this respect, DA differs from more conventional distinctions in assessment, such as that between assessments concerned with the results of previous learning (‘summative assessment’) and those intended to provide information relevant to subsequent instruction (‘formative assessment’). Instead, the embedding of an interactive, instructional element within the assessment procedure allows for the possibility of expanding the evidential basis upon which summative interpretations of learner abilities are made; that is, the results encompass previous learning that has resulted in both complete and partial understanding of relevant concepts. At the same time, DA serves a formative function in so far as interaction allows insights into the underlying sources of learner difficulties and the kind of support to which they are most responsive (Sternberg & Grigorenko, 2002).

Two decades ago, a personally-addressed ten-page survey printed on salmon-colored stock appeared in my campus mailbox. An accompanying letter explained that the sender was a student collecting data for a graduate-level thesis and included contact information for the thesis advisor … in marketing. It was the one and only ‘Consumer Durable Goods Study’ I would ever receive as an applied linguist.

The assessment of students in the classroom has been going on since time immemorial. What is comparatively recent, however, is the systematic study of classroom-based assessment (CBA). The term ‘CBA’ has been putatively linked to Michael Scriven's (1967) work on formative and summative evaluation. However, current interest in such assessment and how it is enacted has, to a large extent, been prompted by shifts in educational policy in various contexts and evolving education systems. This, in turn, has led to the increase in research activity that is detailed in the timeline that follows. At the same time, considerable effort has been exerted by various governments and professional associations into the development of CBA frameworks, but as publications related to these are not strictly research documents, a separate list of examples is provided as supplementary material.

My first encounter with English for specific purposes (ESP) teaching was in the late 1980s. I was asked to lead a small team of teachers in designing a new English course for university students of art and design. We had just a few weeks to devise a teaching plan and materials. ESP was famously described at that time as ‘essentially a materials and teaching-led movement’ (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998, p. 19) and my initial encounter with ESP largely reflected this. However, I believe this description and some other characterizations of ESP have persisted rather too long. In this paper, I seek to problematize a view of ESP as essentially a practical movement and I argue that a characterization of ESP for the present time needs to reflect a broader vision of endeavours and interests.

This timeline provides an update on research since 2009 involving auditory-visual (AV) input in spoken language processing (see Hardison, 2010 for an earlier timeline on this topic). A brief background is presented here as a foundation for the more recent studies of speech as a multimodal phenomenon (e.g., Rosenblum, 2005).

With roots in social psychology, second language (L2) motivation has largely been investigated using self-report techniques. Studies drawing on observational data gathered in contexts where learning takes place are rare, and understandings of how motivation evolves in classroom interactions remain limited (Boo, Dörnyei, & Ryan, 2015). In a position paper in Language Teaching, Ushioda (2016) maps out an agenda for qualitative research examining motivation that emerges in language classrooms. With a focus on psycholinguistic processes, and with the aim of understanding how motivation ‘connects with specific aspects of second language acquisition [and] particular features of linguistic development’, Ushioda makes the case for researching L2 motivation ‘through a small lens’ (p. 564). Furthering this agenda, I make proposals for research with a relational focus where, through a somewhat wider lens, motivation and engagement generated through connections created by teachers in their classroom practice can be investigated. To frame these proposals, I use the concept of connective instruction (Martin & Dowson, 2009). Connective instruction holds that motivation and engagement increase when students can connect with the teacher as a person, with content that the teacher enables them to get involved with, and with the working methods that the teacher promotes.

The aim of this article is to review five years (2014–2018) of research in English language teaching (ELT) in Argentina. In this overview, 115 publications (conference proceedings, journal articles, and edited collections) were analysed in terms of topic and research methodologies to map out the major areas of interest and developments in ELT in Argentina. The publications are reviewed according to nine topics: (1) interculturality and citizenship, (2) language teacher education and professional development, (3) technology-enhanced language learning, (4) learner differences, (5) language skills development, (6) language systems, (7) English for academic and specific purposes, (8) assessment, and (9) language curriculum development. The review discusses trends in research practices identified in the 2014–2018 period and suggests implications and further areas of inquiry to advance research skills as well as knowledge of ELT.

The growing concern for ethics in applied linguistics may be attributed to attempts to stem the rising incidence of ethical lapses in order to ensure that the core ethical principles of (1) respect for persons, (2) yielding optimal benefits while minimizing harm, and (3) justice are preserved. Following a brief historical review of this topic, and building on the growing commitment to carry out ethical applied linguistic research, we map out seven research tasks that will enhance our understanding of how to extend this expanding research agenda. By inviting applied linguists to evaluate their methodological practices and those of their peers, we also argue for the need to develop the ethical dispositions of emerging applied linguists, with a view to create a more robust field.

Research employing psycholinguistic techniques to assess the on-line processing of collocation by native and non-native speakers has flourished in the past few years. This line of research aims (among other things) at exploring actual performance in real time as opposed to the traditional paper-and-pencil testing techniques that have been extensively employed in collocation research. The present paper reviews some of the pertinent research on the on-line processing of collocations and argues for the need for more replication studies in the area. It then looks at how two experimental studies on the topic – Millar (2011) and Wolter and Gyllstad (2011) – may be replicated in order to gain deeper understanding of the key factors behind collocation processing and to obtain more valid and generalizable results that can find their way into language teaching practice.

This paper discusses key concepts in the emerging field of technology-mediated task-based language teaching (TMTBLT) and provides a research agenda for moving this sub-field forward in a theoretically sound and data-driven way. We first define TMTBLT and discuss the importance of considering technological affordances and specific learning contexts when matching individual technologies with particular tasks. We then explore the notion of task, specifically task complexity and sequencing, and how the introduction of technology may interact and modify tasks' features. Next, we examine the use of mobile apps and social media within a task-based language teaching (TBLT) framework and highlight areas primed for exploration or in need of reconciliation. Finally, we call for TMTBLT studies to capture and evaluate learner process data. Within each area above we propose a series of specific research tasks that incrementally build on previous research in both face-to-face and technology-mediated environments, which may help us better understand how tasks and technologies intersect to promote language learning.

This study replicates Bitchener and Knoch (2010), which reported that written corrective feedback (WCF) targeting two single-rule English article functions (first mention a and subsequent mention the) is effective. The current replication study repeats the original study in most respects but adds to the assessment of the intervention's efficacy by recording the impact of focused WCF on all functional article uses, and not just on the two uses targeted by the WCF. The results of the replication study partially confirm Bitchener & Knoch's results and introduce some further differentiated findings. It is concluded that while the focused WCF leads to increased accuracy in the targeted functions of articles, the same WCF may negatively impact the remaining non-targeted article functions, especially for the group that received the most explicit WCF in the form of metalinguistic explanation.

This paper examines the emergent identities of three STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) lecturers, focusing especially on how they construct themselves with regard to their disciplines and how researchers construct them as potential English language teachers. It begins with essential background information before discussing identity as a key construct. The paper then moves to the presentation of a Foucauldian-inflected version of positioning theory which is employed as a means of understanding the construction of English-medium instruction (EMI) STEM lecturer identities. In the second half of the paper, there is a discussion of three case-studies of EMI STEM lecturers, which shows how each orientates to his or her subject discipline, and the prospect of acting, on occasion, as an English language teacher. Specifically, there is a detailed consideration of how EMI lecturers position themselves in their contacts with researchers and in their teaching; how their self-positionings are consistent or not with how researchers position them; and how self-positionings are similar or different across EMI lecturers. The paper ends with a discussion of what conclusions can be drawn from the research findings.