Now in its fortieth volume, Language Teaching was first published in 1968 as a joint initiative of the English-Teaching Information Centre of the British Council and the Centre for Information on Language Teaching (CILT). Entitled Language Teaching Abstracts (vols. 1–7, 1968–1974), it initially contained only abstracts of articles published in journals held at the CILT Library. Extending its brief, the journal included reports ‘Current research in Britain’ (starting in vol. 4, 1971), based on a register maintained by CILT, and brief notes on recent publications of interest to the language-teaching readership. With volume 8 (1975) came a modification of the title, Language Teaching & Linguistics: Abstracts (vols. 8–14, 1975–1981), and the introduction of survey articles (now known as state-of-the-art articles), which strengthened the journal's profile as a research resource and established its firm position as a major reference publication in the field. Having acquired its present title in 1982 (vol. 15), LT introduced another type of survey article, an annual research review (vol. 21, 1988), and began publishing occasional geographical surveys (vol. 32, 1999). The former is now a well-established feature. The latter – surveys of language-teaching practice and research in specific countries or regions – is about to be re-launched as a regular section in the journal. Looking forward to future volumes and maintaining its commitment to serve as an international research resource for language-teaching academics, professionals and students, a new-look LT is preparing to introduce a number of other features.

Here follows a list, in chronological order, of the state-of-the-art articles and the annual research surveys published in Language Teaching & Linguistics: Abstracts (vols. 8–14, 1975–1981) and Language Teaching (vol. 15, 1982 onwards). There were no articles published in LTLA 11.1 (1978), 12.3 (1979), 13.3 (1980) and 14.1 (1981), and LT 35.4 (2002).