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.

Numerous people have helped shape each issue of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, but there is always one person who has been particularly generous in sharing his or her time and expertise. For this issue, I would like to thank Merrill Swain for her Skype calls about the issue and for, as always, her amazing breadth of knowledge. She not only knows about research in every area of applied linguistics but also, it seems, in every corner of the world. She contributed greatly to not only this, but every issue during my tenure as editor. As this is my last issue, I would like to thank the other editorial directors as well.

As I write the introduction to my penultimate volume of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, I find myself grateful for three aspects of the job. First, I have learned so much about research that I did not know existed, in the case of this issue, linguistic landscape research. Second, I am grateful for colleagues who, while experts in their specific areas, have an amazing breadth of knowledge of the field of applied linguistics. Such individuals are rare finds, and I am lucky to have several such people on my editorial board. Finally, I would not be able to put together issues on certain topics without the help of colleagues whom I have called upon for brainstorming sessions. I am thankful for colleagues who are so willing to help. For this issue, I thank, in particular, Jasone Cenoz.

Given the proliferation of recent research on formulaic language, including several books, it seemed time to devote an issue of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics to the topic. Empirical research focusing on chunks of language shows no signs of waning, and the topic has even made its way into the popular press, thanks to Ben Zimmer's column in the New York Times two years ago.

With this volume of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (ARAL), I continue the tradition of my predecessors of producing a volume on the topic second language pedagogy about every five years. Although applied linguistics encompasses more than the teaching and learning of second languages, articles on these topics tend to be among the most downloaded from the ARAL web site. I decided, however, to break with the tradition of focusing mostly on specific skill areas. Because language teaching is a situated activity that cannot be separated from its contexts and learners, the first section is devoted to language learning in or for specific contexts (secondary school settings, online, the workplace, the Asia-Pacific region, and study abroad), and the second section focuses on specific learners (young learners, adult emergent readers, and hearing learners of sign language). These are followed by a section on integrated approaches and includes articles on language-literature instruction, content and language integrated learning, the application of corpus research to language teaching, and multimodal literacy. The final section includes articles on more specific skill areas including teaching non-Roman writing systems, collaborative writing, and pragmatics.

This issue is my first edited volume of the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (ARAL). Each year ARAL focuses on a specific theme, but about every five years it covers a range of mostly unrelated topics in a survey issue. Volume 30 was scheduled to be a survey issue, and after some discussion with the editorial directors, I decided to keep this tradition. Thus, I had the daunting task of choosing four broad topics, and then within each broad topic, a few narrow topics on which to invite scholars to write review articles. I chose a wide range of areas as a statement that I see the field of applied linguistics as not only being broad but as also representing a range of perspectives on theory and research methods. For example, I have included sections both on language socialization and on linguistic theory (mostly formal) in second language acquisition. I felt that these two areas were quite far apart with regard to the view that researchers in those areas held, but in my mind, both social and cognitive approaches to language learning and use are valid and simply seek to answer different questions. In the section on research methods, the articles focus on using both cognitive and social approaches, as well as quantitative and qualitative methods. The articles on heritage language learning focus on acquisition, policy, pedagogy, and sociocultural issues.

This study examines the effectiveness of written error corrections versus reformulations of second language learners' writing as two means of improving learners' grammatical accuracy on a three-stage composition-comparison-revision task. Concurrent verbal protocols were employed during the comparison stage in order to study the learners' reported awareness of the more targetlike reformulations. The reactivity of think-alouds as a research tool was also assessed. First, 15 adult learners of English participated in a repeated-measures study with three experimental conditions: error correction, reformulation, and reformulation + think-aloud. Participant reports of awareness in the reformulation + think-aloud condition suggested that noticing of feedback was related to the accuracy of subsequent revisions. A second nonrepeated-measures study was then carried out with 54 participants; a control group was added and the design was modified in an attempt to eliminate the reported tendency of learners to develop and use memorization strategies while processing the written feedback. In both experiments, participants performed significantly better in the error correction condition than in the reformulation condition. The think-alouds, used to examine learners' attentional processes, were found to be reactive in the first study; learners in the reformulation condition produced significantly more accurate revisions than those who were asked to think aloud while processing the reformulations they received. The results suggest that whereas verbal protocols might be able to shed some light on learner-internal processes in relation to written feedback, they should be employed and interpreted with care.We would like to thank Alison Mackey and the anonymous SSLA reviewers for their helpful suggestions on this article.

HANDBOOK OF RESEARCH IN SECOND LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING. Eli Hinkel (Ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005. Pp. xxii + 1144. $260.00 cloth, $99.95 paper.

Hinkel's ambitious tome is the newest addition to handbooks in the field of applied linguistics. The volume is composed of eight sections: “Important Social Contexts in Research on Second Language Teaching and Learning,” “Methods in Second Language Research,” “Applied Linguistics and Second Language Research,” “Second Language Processes and Development,” “Methods and Curricula in Second Language Teaching,” “Second Language Testing and Assessment,” “Identity, Culture, and Critical Pedagogy in Second Language Learning and Teaching,” and “Language Planning and Policy and Language Rights.” Each section includes an introduction and 3–12 chapters written by researchers who are well known in their respective areas.

Implicit negative feedback has been shown to facilitate SLA, and the extent to which such feedback is given is related to a variety of task and interlocutor variables. The background of a native speaker (NS), in terms of amount of experience in interactions with nonnative speakers (NNSs), has been shown to affect the quantity of implicit negative feedback (namely recasts) in a classroom setting. This study examines the effect of experience and uses stimulated recall to attempt to understand the interactional patterns of two groups of NSs (with greater and lesser experience) interacting with second language (L2) learners outside of the classroom context. Two groups of NSs of English each completed an information exchange task with a L2 learner: The first group consisted of 11 preservice teachers with minimal experience with NNSs, whereas the second group included 8 experienced teachers with significant teaching experience. Immediately after the task, each NS participated in a stimulated recall, viewing a videotape of the interaction and commenting on the interaction. The quantitative results did not show a strong difference in the number of recasts used by the two groups, but it did show a difference in the quantity of NNS output between the two groups. This finding was corroborated by the stimulated recalls, which showed that those with experience—who clearly saw themselves as language teachers even outside of the classroom—had strategies for and concerns about getting the learners to produce output. Additionally, the experienced teachers showed greater recognition of student comprehension, student learning, and student problems. Those with little experience were more focused on themselves, on student feelings, and on procedural and task-related issues.

This annotated bibliography is a list of 676 journal articles, book chapters, dissertations, and ERIC documents related to the teaching and learning of second and foreign language writing. The list is a compilation of bibliographies published in the Journal of Second Language Writing during the years 1993–1997, with entries dating from 1991 to 1997. After a brief introduction, which includes the databases that were searched and the periodicals that were examined, the bibliography presents the entries in alphabetical order by author. Following an author index is a 23-page subject index to the entries.

Second language development in writing: Measures of fluency, accuracy, and complexity is a technical report that reviews 39 studies examining measures of writing development. It is a comprehensive, lucid, and carefully researched piece of work analyzing an untidy body of literature. This volume is essential reading for anyone doing quantitative research in L2 writing. The studies included in this review are those that have attempted to correlate potential linguistic measures of writing development with writing proficiency, not simply studies that have used the various measures as dependent variables to examine the effects of some instructional treatment. Complicating the picture is the fact that indicators of writing proficiency are varied, as is the case with indicators of oral proficiency (Thomas, 1994). Each of these indicators, including standardized tests, levels in various language programs, and holistic measures, has its own set of problems. For example, of the 16 studies using holistic scales, only half reported interrater or intrarater reliability.

A Course in Language Teaching covers a wide variety of topics related to language teaching, from reading to testing to syllabus design. The book contains 22 modules organized into seven sections. Each module contains short bits of prose followed by tasks, questions, applications, or sample activities. Most of the modules have boxes of well-summarized information on a particular point (e.g., types of grammar practice, ways of presenting new vocabulary, learner difficulties in listening).

In this paper we address the need for replication studies in the field of second language acquisition and discuss the problems surrounding standards of reporting research. A particular focus is on the level of detail necessary for replication to take place. The lack of uniform standards is noted with specific examples of problematic reporting taken from descriptions of second language learners' proficiency levels and measures of linguistic accuracy in second language writing research. We propose ways that we believe will lead to more thorough reporting of research and that will therefore allow others to engage in replication.

Some earlier SLA research suggests that zero pronouns should be easily acquired by second language learners, yet this has not been carefully examined because studies of nominal reference are usually limited to the acquisition of languages that do not have zero pronouns. This study examines how speakers of languages with zero pronouns (Japanese) and without them (English) use zero pronouns when acquiring a language that has them (Mandarin Chinese). The findings show that second language learners do not use zero pronouns as often as native speakers and that their use increases with proficiency. When examined more closely, it can be seen that the speakers have no difficulty using zero pronouns when there is a syntactic or semantic restriction, but they do have difficulty at the discourse level. It is claimed that this underuse of zero pronouns corresponds with other research that shows that second language learners tend to avoid pronouns in favor of full noun phrases. Some explanations for these phenomena are postulated.