This article reviews a selected sample of 70 empirical studies in journal articles and doctoral dissertations on language assessment in China between 2011 and 2018. Following a brief introduction to the history and current state of language assessment in China, the article presents a critical review of language assessment research on six themes that have aroused the greatest interest from researchers in the country, including (1) test reliability and validity; (2) factors affecting test performance; (3) rating and rating scales; (4) technology and language testing; (5) test washback; and (6) classroom-based assessment. In addition to situating the commentary on the studies within the social, cultural and historical contexts of China, this article outlines the scholarly contributions of these studies to the wider international field of language learning, teaching and assessment. It concludes with recommendations on areas in need of further development over the coming decades.

Assessment has long been beset by a dichotomy between what Lynch (2003: 4) termed the positivist and interpretivist orientations. The former views assessment as a technical exercise involving the quantification of learners' knowledge or cognitive abilities; the latter considers assessment as the humanistic endeavor of portraying learners' qualitative development and subjective experiences. This presentation argues that, although these distinctions may be useful heuristics, differing types of assessments are more profitably viewed as filling particular niches within an ecosystem. The speech also reports on technical developments that place control over assessment results in the hands of learners, which allows them to assemble evidence from a variety of sources to substantiate proficiency claims. These developments should help promote the paradigm of assessment as ecology and help the field move beyond the uneasy dichotomy that now predominates.

This paper argues that key findings from computer-assisted language learning (CALL) research need to be replicated to permit the construction of a valid and reliable evidence-base which can inform the design of future CALL software and activities, together with language teachers’ decisions about their adoption. Through the critical examination of two key studies, the limitations of much current CALL research with respect to the construction of such an evidence-base are highlighted and approaches to replication which may overcome these limitations are discussed. Like much CALL research, both papers are experimental studies. Key issues raised by the two studies are the need to: (1) conduct replications focused on attributes and affordances which transcend multiple technologies which might be employed in CALL, (2) collect process data to increase the explanatory power of studies, and (3) link CALL research to relevant second language acquisition (SLA) theory and research to increase the explanatory power of studies and integrate the findings from individual studies into the CALL and SLA evidence-base more broadly. Emphasis is also placed on the need to conduct replications with different populations in different settings in order to demonstrate the validity and reliability of current findings.

The goal of this article is to make research on English language teaching and learning published locally in Israel more widely available. Given that so many Israeli researchers are internationally trained and maintain wide connections, it necessarily omits much important work that appears in European and US journals. It focuses on shorter studies, commonly unfunded, that university teachers in EFL programs or in teacher training programs at smaller colleges conduct in their own time. It represents a wide range of good quality research, ‘glocal’ in that its local production does not compromise potential contributions to global concerns. The main themes treated are the early start of teaching English, the development of an integrated methodology, detailed studies of the teaching of lexicon and writing, specialized studies of dyslexia, computer-assisted instruction, English for academic purposes, and teaching Israeli students who already know some English from home or visits abroad. The overall quality of the research is high, matching all but a few top international journals.

Esta reseña presenta una visión general de los estudios sobre español como segunda lengua en contextos educativos. La temática y el ámbito geográfico es amplio a fin de captar la diversidad de alumnos y contextos de aprendizaje de español L2 a sólo dos décadas de que la enseñanza de este idioma adquiriera ímpetu a nivel global. Los alumnos tradicionales de segunda lengua o lengua extranjera, hablantes de herencia, inmigrantes y niños indígenas presentan una variedad de contextos de investigación que contribuye y expande las disciplinas de enseñanza y aprendizaje de segunda lengua/lengua extranjera, lingüística aplicada y sociolingüística. Siguiendo tendencias iniciadas en años anteriores en adquisición de segunda lengua, y en relación con investigaciones sobre otros idiomas, los temas principales en este periodo reciente han sido la adquisición y enseñanza del sistema lingüístico, procesos de aprendizaje y su contexto social. La reseña se organiza temáticamente según estas categorías principales.

This review presents a broad picture of recent work on L2 Spanish1 in educational contexts. The thematic and geographic scope of the review is wide, in order to capture the diversity of learners and learning contexts of L2 Spanish, just two decades after teaching and learning the language gained impetus worldwide. Traditional second or foreign language learners, heritage learners, immigrants and indigenous children provide a variety of contexts for research that builds on and expands the fields of second and foreign language learning and teaching, applied linguistics and sociolinguistics. Continuing the trend from previous years in SLA, and in connection with research on learners of other languages, main themes in this time period have been the acquisition and teaching of the language system, learning processes, and social contexts of learning. The review is organized thematically according to these main categories.

This work provides a chronological and thematic account of empirical studies and position papers on second language (L2) writing scholarship from a complex dynamic systems theory (CDST) perspective. As a theoretical framework, CDST was formally introduced into applied linguistics research by Diane Larsen-Freeman in 1994 (Larsen-Freeman, 1994). However, more than a decade passed before CDST-L2 writing studies emerged in the literature, with Larsen-Freeman (2006) frequently cited as the first related publication. Initially, scholarship focused primarily on the quality of linguistic output (e.g., measures of complexity, accuracy, and fluency, or CAF) in North American and European contexts. Since these early foci, studies have expanded to cover a range of constructs and contexts that employ increasingly sophisticated and diverse research methods (for a recent collection of studies, see Fogal & Verspoor, 2020). In this time, a CDST approach to L2 writing research has matured alongside a general CDST view of language change that has contributed, through empirical studies, to understanding the nonlinear, adaptive, context dependent, and complex and dynamic nature of L2 development (see Hiver et al., 2021, for an overview).

This article presents reflections from 12 experts on language learners strategy (LLS) research. They were asked to offer their reflections in one of their domains of expertise, linking research into LLS with successful language learning and use practices. In essence, they were called upon to provide a review of recent scholarship by identifying areas where results of research had already led to the enhancement of learner strategy use, as well as to describe ongoing and future research efforts intended to enhance the strategy domain. The LLS areas dealt with include theory building, the dynamics of delivering strategy instruction (SI), meta-analyses of SI, learner diversity, SI for young language learners, SI for fine-tuning the comprehension and production of academic-level, grammar strategies at the macro and micro levels, lessons learned from many years of LLS research in Greece, the past and future roles of technology aimed at enhancing language learning, and applications of LLS in content instruction. This review is intended to provide the field with an updated statement as to where we have been, where we are now, and where we need to go. Ideally, it will provide ideas for future studies.

The Research Centre for Language Education and Acquisition in Multilingual Societies (RCLEAMS) is one of four Institute-level Research Centres at the Hong Kong Institute of Education (HKIEd). The principal aim of RCLEAMS is to study multilingual acquisition, language contact and the respective roles of different languages of education in contexts where the languages are not cognate (and where the scripts are often different), in order to be able to better understand the processes and issues involved and to inform governments and language policy-makers. Our particular focus is on Asian languages, including, of course, Chinese, and English. Further details about RCLEAMS, including our specific objectives and international partners, can be found at the website (www.ied.edu.hk/rcleams/). While RCLEAMS itself is relatively small, with only four full-time researchers, we conduct collaborative research with colleagues from the Institute itself, other universities in Hong Kong and with a number of international partners. There are also some thirty doctoral students in the field of language education who work closely with the Centre. We invite anyone who might be interested in working collaboratively with us to get in touch. This report will summarise current and recently completed research projects.

This reflective piece tells the story of how I started out doing Conversation Analysis (CA) and have been transitioning into doing mixed methods for some years now. My basic argument is that language learning talk is too complex a phenomenon to analyse using a single methodology. Specifically, it is extremely difficult to isolate from the interaction concrete evidence of the learning of specific individual items in terms of change of cognitive state. This is owing to the singular complexity of language learning, which adds an extra level of complexity to language learning talk, hence supercomplexity. Of course, the counter-argument to this would be that CA as a methodology is designed to reveal the complexity and fluidity of spoken interaction. The complex organisation of ordinary conversation (Sacks et al., 1974) and of varieties of institutional interaction (Drew & Heritage, 1992) have been very well established for a very long time. CA has been extremely successful and popular as a methodology for the analysis of spoken interaction in a huge range of settings. There have been many CA studies of language learning talk over the last few decades, including my own. So why do I now feel that it cannot portray the full complexity of language learning talk on its own? There is an idiosyncratic problem with language learning talk, namely that it has an additional level of complexity superimposed on top of the regular problems of analysing spoken interaction. This is because language is the object as well as the vehicle of language learning talk.

The large and wide-ranging body of research in French as a second language has contributed significantly to the development of several branches of the broad discipline of applied linguistics. However, there have to date been few attempts to provide a comprehensive account of this literature as a distinct, language-specific body of knowledge. The present overview summarises a large number of studies published since the year 2000 under the twin broad categories of research in L2 French acquisition and research in L2 French teaching and learning. The overview of the studies, representing different epistemological approaches and targeting different research objectives, provides an up-to-date account of the main concerns of L2 French researchers working in different countries. The article also draws out salient themes that link this work (such as insights gained from analysis of the impact of different L1 backgrounds on L2 French acquisition) and highlights differences in L2 French research trends (such as different emphases and perspectives adopted in anglophone and francophone studies).

The growing adoption of emerging technologies for language pedagogy, literacy development, and language assessment has accelerated computer-assisted language learning (CALL) as a major field of education and led to the establishment of major specialized journals, such as Language Learning and Technology, Computer Assisted Language Learning, and ReCALL. As technologies further advanced, we began to see individuals and schools increasingly adopt CALL technologies and use their interactive features to facilitate language learning. Consequently, CALL research began to gain momentum and expand its research foci during the mid-1990s (Levy, 2000; Uzunboylu & Ozcinar, 2009). This expansion gave birth to some independent and stand-alone subfields, such as computer-assisted language testing (CALT) (Parmaxi et al., 2013).

Language learning is inextricably linked to a social context, and this implies that context-related social variables, such as ethnicity or attitudes, can influence how language learning unfolds. Among the many group-engendered social factors, ethnic identity appears to have interesting consequences for language teaching and learning (Pavlenko & Blackledge 2004). Indeed, issues of personal and group identity often become important when individuals or groups come in contact with one another to learn a language. Briefly, ethnic identity refers to a person's subjective experience of being a part of an ethnic group (Ashmore, Deaux & McLaughlin-Volpe 2004). For second language (L2) learners, the two relevant groups are usually their primary (home) ethnic group and the L2 community. We report here on the research that we have been conducting at Concordia University in Montreal, as part of the Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance, with the goal of investigating the role of ethnic group identity in L2 learning.

With much empirical evidence of a beneficial role of interaction in second language (L2) development, researchers have become interested in investigating specific aspects of interaction (e.g., negotiation for meaning, corrective feedback (CF), modified output, noticing, etc.) that likely influence the extent to which interaction benefits L2 learning (Mackey, 2012; Mackey, Abbuhl, & Gass, 2012; Mackey & Goo, 2013; Gass & Mackey, 2015; Loewen & Sato, 2018). Among varied features of interaction, CF has been found to be quite effective at drawing learners' attention to L2 linguistic features during interaction, and has engendered much scholarly discussion of pivotal importance and numerous empirical studies on its potential for L2 development (see Russell & Spada, 2006; Mackey & Goo, 2007; S. Li, 2010*; Lyster & Saito, 2010*; Lyster, Saito, & Sato, 2013*; Brown, 2016*; Nassaji, 2016* for reviews and meta-analyses). Recasts, inter alia, have been at the center of most CF research and greatly explored with a view to understanding the nature of recasts, their characteristics (in various L2 learning contexts), their relative efficacy over other CF moves, and moderator variables that may mediate the effectiveness of recasts.

Second language (SL) teacher educators tirelessly teach others how to teach. But how often do we actually define teaching? Without explicit definitional activity on this fundamental concept in second language teaching (SLT), it remains implicit and intuitive – the opposite of clear, productive understanding.

I therefore explore the question, ‘What is teaching?’ in this paper. First, I establish the claim that the SLT literature rarely defines teaching explicitly, in part because of its technical ‘how-to’ focus. Second, I offer a heuristic definition of teaching as evolutionarily adaptive behavior (TEAB) – as existing in humans because it enables adaptation to varied and complex ecosocial circumstances. In contrast, animals have quite modest adaptive powers, so it may come as a surprise that TEAB is not uniquely human. Therefore, third, I review research comparing animal and human teaching in order to help us understand the latter better. Fourth, I describe teaching as studied by anthropologists – as it varies across human groups. Formal teaching is relatively rare from an anthropological perspective, and relatively recent at that. Fifth, I employ the results of this definitional exercise to exploratorily examine what happens in SLT classrooms. Finally, I discuss implications and future directions for the ideas presented here and conclude.