This article offers a critical review of research on the use of glossing and its contribution to second language (L2) vocabulary acquisition. Discussion topics include the complexity of estimating the effectiveness of glossing relative to reading non-glossed texts, the quest for optimal implementations of glossing, issues of ecological validity, and ambiguity around the nature of vocabulary learning from glosses. The general conclusion is that, despite the substantial number of research studies on this subject, many questions remain to which only tentative and provisional answers are currently available. This is partly owing to the wide diversity in research designs across studies and the lack of transparency of many research reports. Suggestions are made for further research on glossing with a view to enabling future systematic reviews to produce more nuanced answers and more informed recommendations for the design of L2 reading materials.

In this position paper, we argue that second language (L2) pragmatic research needs to explore new avenues for integrating speech acts and interaction, by proposing a radically minimal, finite and interactional typology of speech acts. While we will introduce what we mean by integrating speech acts and interaction in detail below, the following argument helps us to summarise the issue we consider in this study:

Research into dictionary use does not have a long history. Although publishers recognised in the 1960s that ‘dictionaries should be designed with a special set of users in mind’ (Householder 1967: 279) there were extremely few empirical user studies before the 1980s – Welker's most recent survey (2010) lists only six. The subsequent surge of interest in this field was fuelled by big changes to dictionary content and design in the 1980s and 1990s, changes that were particularly evident in dictionaries for learners of English as a foreign language, conventionally known as ‘learners’ dictionaries’. In the space of a few years the Oxford advanced learner's dictionary, generally considered to be the earliest advanced learners’ dictionary (first published under a different title in 1942, with subsequent editions in 1948, 1963, 1974 and 1989) was joined by two new competitors: the Longman dictionary of contemporary English (first edition 1978, second edition 1987) and the COBUILD English dictionary (1987). In 1995 all three of these advanced learners’ dictionaries brought out new editions, and a fourth, the Cambridge international dictionary of English, was launched. These dictionaries, sometimes referred to as ‘the big four’ (Bogaards 1996, De Schryver 2012 and others), drew on Eastern European traditions of lexical description, the illustrative practices of American children's dictionaries, and insights from English language teaching pedagogies. Each had its own distinctive layout and defining style, prompting a spate of comparative studies intended to help users make appropriate purchasing choices, and to help publishers improve their design still further, for example by changes to the entry microstructure. A fifth such dictionary, the Macmillan English dictionary for advanced learners, appeared in 2002.

This paper provides an agenda for replication studies focusing on second language (L2) writing and the use of natural language processing (NLP) tools and machine learning algorithms. Specifically, it introduces a range of the available NLP tools and machine learning algorithms and demonstrates how these could be used to replicate seminal studies in L2 writing that concentrate on longitudinal writing development, predicting essay quality, examining differences between L1 and L2 writers, the effects of writing topics, and the effects of writing tasks. The paper concludes with implications for the recommended replication studies in the field of L2 writing and the advantages of using NLP tools and machine learning algorithms.

For many researchers in the social sciences, including those in applied linguistics, the term ethics evokes the bureaucratic process of fulfilling the requirements of an ethics review board (e.g., in the US, an Institutional Review Board, or IRB) as a preliminary step in conducting human subjects research. The expansion of ethics review boards into the social sciences in the early 2000s has led applied linguistics as a field to experience what Haggerty (2004) termed ethics creep, a simultaneous expansion and intensification of external regulation of research activities. The aims of these ethical review boards are: (a) to evaluate the types and risk of harm to participants as a result of research activities, (b) ensure that participants can give informed consent to be part of the research activities, and (c) provide oversight on researcher procedures to maintain participant anonymity/confidentiality (Haggerty, 2004).

Research has increasingly demonstrated that pronunciation difficulties in English can seriously affect learners’ intelligibility and ability to comprehend spoken English. It is thus crucial that we find ways of helping learners of English become more intelligible. In this talk, I present compelling research evidence in support of a strategy-based pronunciation instruction model, and uncover individual learner, teacher, and instructional variables affecting long-term improvement. Findings from my published and ongoing studies involving different groups of learners and teachers highlight the critical role of teachers in self-regulated learning, and suggest the need for methodological refinements to the model. The results show that students’ self-regulated efforts at learning can be further enhanced and supported if combined with goal-setting and awareness-raising activities, online speech models and resources, video-recordings to assess progress, guided reflections on oral assignments, ongoing feedback, and re-assessments of goals after improvement. I conclude the talk with a discussion of these methodological refinements and possible avenues for future research.

In contemporary methodological thinking, replication holds a central place. However, relatively little attention has been paid to replication in the context of complex dynamic systems theory (CDST), perhaps due to uncertainty regarding the epistemology–methodology match between these domains. In this paper, we explore the place of replication in relation to open systems and argue that three conditions must be in place for replication research to be effective: results interpretability, theoretical maturity, and terminological precision. We consider whether these conditions are part of the applied linguistics body of work, and then propose a more comprehensive framework centering on what we call substantiation research, only one aspect of which is replication. Using this framework, we discuss three approaches to dealing with replication from a CDST perspective theory. These approaches are moving from a representing to an intervening mindset, from a comprehensive theory to a mini-theory mindset, and from individual findings to a cumulative mindset.

Although major advances have been made in research on language learning strategies (LLS), there are some areas that have been somewhat surprisingly neglected by specialists. This applies without doubt to the strategies that learners draw on to better understand and learn grammar rules but also to employ grammar structures in real-time processing, as required in spontaneous communication. In this paper, I outline a research agenda for grammar learning strategies (GLS), identifying three distinct lines of inquiry: (1) identification and measurement of GLS, (2) examination of factors moderating GLS use, and (3) strategies-based instruction as applied to GLS. Although these three areas are to some extent reflective of the main foci of empirical investigations in research on LLS, in each case, I try to demonstrate how cutting-edge theoretical and empirical developments can be applied to the study of GLS. For each of the three areas, I propose research tasks the execution of which has the potential of moving research on GLS forward.

Curricular articulation and the integration of cultural knowledge with language development over extended sequences are among the most persistent challenges for contemporary language teaching and learning. The paper examines the nature of those challenges in light of theories of language and culture while using as the site of investigation the culture standards that have been developed within the framework of the Standards for Foreign Language Learning, a key document for L2 education in the United States, particularly at the K-12 level. Taking four perspectives, it suggests ways in which simultaneous content and language teaching might be tackled through a genre-based way of constructing extended curricula and by using genre-based tasks for informing pedagogical decisions. In this fashion, learners might be able to progress toward a competent cultural literacy that is language-based.

The past decades have seen dramatic improvements to dictionary content and format. Yet dictionaries – both paper-based and digital – remain disappointingly underused. As a result, it is widely acknowledged that more needs to be done to train people in dictionary-consultation skills. Another solution would be to build lexicographic resources that require little or no instruction. In this paper, I present the ColloCaid project, whose aim is to develop a lexicographic tool that combines user needs, lexicographic data and digital writing environments to bring dictionaries to writers instead of waiting for them to get the information they need from dictionaries. Our focus is on helping writers produce more idiomatic texts by integrating lexicographic data on collocations into text editors in a way that does not distract them from their writing. A distinguishing characteristic of ColloCaid is that it is not limited to providing feedback on miscollocations. It also aims to ‘feed forward’, raising awareness of collocations writers may not remember or know how to look up. While our initial prototype is being developed specifically for academic English, the implications of our research can be broadened to other languages and usages beyond academic.

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.

Most recent publications related to listening comprehension research deal with listening strategy instruction, metacognitive instruction or multimedia applications. This paper discusses one study from each of these three domains – Graham & Macaro (2008), Vandergrift & Tafaghodtari (2010) and Brett (1997) – and presents the need and possibilities for replication, along with a few minor, but interesting, variations that could help test the robustness of the original study. After providing some background to each of the three domains, we overview the respective studies and propose approaches to replication (both approximate and conceptual) along with the accompanying benefits.

Language test development proceeds best when the test's effect is borne in mind, throughout the test development process. The authors discuss the flexible language of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and explore the pragmatic utility of such language to guide language test development. They select service encounters (e.g. airline ticket sales, open-air markets) as a sample language use domain to illustrate demonstrable weaknesses in the Framework. Using the CEFR Level A1 service encounter descriptor, suggested testing materials are shown in a versioned evolution of a proposed test specification. Provided that effect is kept in mind, the authors argue, the CEFR is actually a valuable – even an optimistic – starting point for language test development.

This review of recent scholarship (RRS) paper is a follow-up of the first, published in this journal in 2014. For this RRS paper, we identified and included 304 mixed-methods research (MMR) papers published in 20 top-tier applied linguistics (AL) journals. We used a six-pronged quality and transparency framework to review and analyze the MMR studies, drawing on six quality frameworks and transparency discussions in the MMR literature. Using the quality and transparency framework, we report on: (1) which sources AL MMR researchers use to frame their studies, (2) how explicitly they explain the purpose and design structure of the MMR studies, (3) how transparently they describe method features (sampling procedures, data sources, and data analysis), and (4) how they integrate quantitative and qualitative data and analyses and construct meta-inferences. The results of the analyses will be reported and will show how MMR has developed and is represented in the published articles in the second decade of the twenty-first century. The discussion of the results will also highlight the areas future AL MMR researchers need to consider to make their studies and reports more rigorous and transparent.

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.

This overview of six years of research on language learning and teaching in Austria covers a period of dynamic development in the field. While all the studies reviewed here illustrate research driven by a combination of local and global concerns and theoretical frameworks, some specific clusters of research interest emerge. The first of these focuses on issues connected with multilingualism in present-day society in terms of language policy, theory development and, importantly, the critical scrutiny of dominant discursive practices in connection with minority and migrant languages. In combination with this focus, there is a concern with German as a second or foreign language in a number of contexts. A second cluster concerns the area of language testing and assessment, which has gained political import due to changes in national education policy and the introduction of standardized tests. Finally, a third cluster of research concerns the diverse types of specialized language instruction, including the introduction of foreign language instruction from age six onwards, the rise of academic writing instruction, English-medium education and, as a final more general issue, the role of English as a dominant language in the canon of all foreign and second languages in Austria.