This state-of-the-art review reports on the major studies conducted in the field of Deutsch als Wissenschaftssprache (academic German) since the late 1990s. To begin with, the current position of German as a language of academic communication nationally and internationally will be discussed, focusing especially on the challenges posed by the status of English as a lingua franca. Subsequently, the major research undertaken since the late 1990s will be reviewed and its contribution to the development of teaching materials evaluated. Since studies on academic German have been influenced, to some extent, by research in English for Academic Purposes (EAP), this paper also attempts to dovetail developments in EAP in order to highlight commonalties and differences. The final sections will discuss some potential synergies and implications for further research in both fields.

Ziel des Beitrags ist es, einen Überblick über den Forschungsstand im Bereich Deutsch als Wissenschaftssprache (DaW) zu geben. Dabei wird hauptsächlich auf empirische Arbeiten und Forschungsprojekte eingegangen, die in den letzten 15 Jahren abgeschlossen wurden. Zuerst wird der gegenwärtige Status des Deutschen als Wissenschaftssprache in dem wissenschaftlichen Betrieb in den deutschsprachigen Ländern und international kurz besprochen. Ein besonderes Augenmerk wird dabei auf die Problematik gelegt, die durch die Dominanz des Englischen entstanden ist. Darauf folgend werden empirische Studien, die sich mit vielfältigen Aspekten der wissenschaftlichen Kommunikation auf Deutsch befassten, dargestellt und kommentiert. Da viele der Arbeiten didaktischen Zielsetzungen folgten, werden auch anschließend einige neue Ansätze zur Vermittlung des Deutschen als Wissenschaftssprache diskutiert. DaW hat sich in den letzten 20 Jahren zu einem eigenständigen und dynamischen Forschungsfeld entwickelt, das hinsichtlich der Vielfalt und Tiefe der Themen seinem englischen Pendant English for Academic Purposes (EAP) in nichts nachsteht. Nichtsdestotrotz kann EAP, das ein umfangreicheres Forschungsgebiet darstellt, viele neue Impulse liefern. Abschließend werden einige theoretische und methodische Aspekte aufgegriffen, die die Forschung in EAP und DaW anregen und bereichern könnten.

This paper brings together the research and developments of instructed pragmatics over the past three decades by reporting the synthesis findings of instructional intervention studies in interlanguage pragmatics. Two questions have guided this investigation: (1) is instruction effective in learning pragmatics?; and (2) what methods are most effective in learning pragmatics? Exhaustive electronic bibliographical searches yielded a body of 58 instructional intervention studies for the review. Findings across these studies are compared and explored for common patterns and inconsistencies that emerge among them. The paper concludes with implications for future research based on the survey of the existing practice.

The teaching of foreign languages to young learners is growing in popularity around the world. Research in this field, particularly of English as a second/foreign language education in East Asia, is a relatively new area of empirical inquiry, and it has the potential to make significant contributions to child second-language acquisition (Child-SLA) theory building, research methodologies, and policies in East Asia and beyond. This article reviews relevant peer-reviewed literature on English education among young learners in East Asia (China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan). I begin by reviewing policy literature to illustrate the social and policy contexts of early English education, identifying major policy-related concerns. Next, I review empirical studies of English learning and teaching, organizing them by their relevance to the previously identified policy concerns. The article concludes with suggestions for future research.

The Editor and Board of Language Teaching are pleased to announce that the winner of the 2014 Christopher Brumfit thesis award is Dr Hilde van Zeeland. The thesis was selected by an external panel of judges based on its significance to the field of second language acquisition, second or foreign language learning and teaching, originality and creativity and quality of presentation.

While the viva voce (oral) examination has always been used in content-based educational assessment (Latham 1877: 132), the assessment of second language (L2) speaking in performance tests is relatively recent. The impetus for the growth in testing speaking during the 19th and 20th centuries is twofold. Firstly, in educational settings the development of rating scales was driven by the need to improve achievement in public schools, and to communicate that improvement to the outside world. Chadwick (1864, see timeline) implies that the rating scales first devised in the 1830s served two purposes: providing information to the classroom teacher on learner progress for formative use, and generating data for school accountability. From the earliest days, such data was used for parents to select schools for their children in order to ‘maximize the benefit of their investment’ (Chadwick 1858). Secondly, in military settings it was imperative to be able to predict which soldiers were able to undertake tasks in the field without risk to themselves or other personnel (Kaulfers 1944, see timeline). Many of the key developments in speaking test design and rating scales are linked to military needs.

This state-of-the-art review provides a critical overview of research publications in Spain in the last ten years in three areas of teaching and learning foreign languages (especially English): context and language integrated learning (CLIL), young language learners (YLL), and technology-enhanced language learning (TELL). These three domains have been selected for their relevance to current education policies and practices in Spain. This review aims to provide access for international readers to research published in Spain in the local languages or in English, within these innovative fields.

El presente artículo ofrece una mirada crítica a las investigaciones en torno a la enseñanza y aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras en España en los últimos diez años. Este estado de la cuestión presta especial atención al inglés y aborda tres ejes que tienen gran relevancia en las actuales políticas educativas y las prácticas docentes en España: la introducción temprana de una lengua extranjera, el aprendizaje integrado de contenidos y lenguas extranjeras (AICLE) y el aprendizaje de lenguas asistido por ordenador (ALAO). Este artículo pretende divulgar internacionalmente los estudios publicados en el ámbito nacional, en inglés y en las lenguas vernáculas, en estas áreas de innovación.

The paper reports a study of a narrative-based Dynamic Assessment (DA) procedure developed in the USA that is used in the UK with children with developmental language disabilities. Three monolingual English children with language disabilities are assessed by a speech/language pathologist/therapist who is learning to work with DA in collaboration with the researcher in the study. Quantitative evidence of language structures indicates that the children learn to talk more after two intervention sessions. Evidence from the mediations of the children's language learning capabilities throws diagnostic light on the nature of their needs. A critique is offered of the assessment tool, and conclusions are drawn about the implications of DA for differentiating language-learning potential in language disabilities, with suggestions for further study.

There has been considerable debate about the relevance and applicability of SLA theory and research for L2 pedagogy. There are those who maintain that SLA must be applicable to L2 pedagogy: a view based on the argument that because SLA is a subfield of applied linguistics, it should have direct relevance to L2 teaching. Others take the view that not all areas of SLA research need to be relevant to L2 pedagogy – only the more ‘applied’ areas. While I would agree that much of the work in SLA should be applicable to L2 pedagogy, particularly research on instructed SLA, my presentation takes a different perspective on the SLA/L2 pedagogy interface. It focuses on misapplications of SLA theory and research to L2 pedagogy. I argue that the applicability of SLA research for L2 instruction requires a careful consideration of context and that specific SLA constructs – even those considered to be important within instructed SLA – may not have direct relevance to L2 pedagogy. Three areas of SLA research that I will discuss with respect to misapplication and relevance are: the role of instruction in SLA, the role of age in SLA, and the nature of and distinction between implicit and explicit L2 knowledge.

Students entering English-medium universities around the world come from diverse linguistic backgrounds and many find it difficult to cope with the language demands of their degree courses. This speech focuses first on the motivations for introducing what are known in Australia as post-entry language assessments (PELAs). I discuss in particular the Diagnostic English Language Needs Assessment (DELNA) at the University of Auckland, which has been successfully implemented throughout the university in the last ten years. This leads to a broader discussion of three significant issues in post-entry language assessment. One is the nature of the construct on which such assessments are based. A related issue is whether a PELA can appropriately be considered ‘diagnostic’ in nature. The third issue is how to undertake the validation of a PELA, particularly with regard to the consequential aspect: does the assessment contribute to enhancing the students’ academic language ability?

No area of language assessment research in the past 20 years has received a greater increase in attention than washback research. Beginning with the seminal work of Alderson & Wall (Alderson & Wall 1993; Wall & Alderson 1993), an evolving body of empirical washback studies has been conducted worldwide, especially in countries where English is not the dominant language. A systematic search of the pertinent literature between 1993 and 2013 identified a total of 123 publications consisting of 36 review articles and 87 empirical studies. The focus of this review is on the empirical studies. A further breakdown of these empirical studies reveals 11 books and monographs, 27 doctoral dissertations, 40 journal articles, and 9 book chapters. This intensity of research activity underscores the timeliness and importance of this research topic and highlights its maturity, which in turn calls for this systematic review.

This paper examines how flows of people, media, money, technology, and ideologies move through the world, with attention to how these scapes (Appadurai 1990, 1996, 2013) shape identity construction among language learners, both in and out of classrooms. After illustrating intersecting scapes in sociolinguistic terms, I explore the relevance of these ideas to identity formation among language learners, using three case studies. First, I examine the mediascape of hip hop in the ideoscape of education in Hong Kong, where an ELT Rap curriculum was designed for working class students in a low-banded secondary school. Next, I discuss how the confluence of transnationals and cosmopolitan urban residents in Tanzania provides a range of identity options for learners of Swahili that challenge nation-state-based associations of language. Finally, I consider how learners’ engagement in anime and manga from the mediascape is taken up in an introductory university-level Japanese language classroom in Hawai’i. These examples demonstrate how individuals are increasingly learning and using additional languages in the contexts of cultural mélange and new identity zones.

This talk is about finding ‘unity in diversity’. I ask how we can best focus our research efforts and then design our teaching for those of us involved with teaching language for specific business purposes in the Asia Pacific region and the Middle East. In parts 1 and 2 of the presentation I discuss how we need to (i) refer to empirical evidence as the basis for our teaching and training materials, (ii) become more aware of the challenges posed by globalisation, (iii) understand the role played for business people by English as a lingua franca, alongside other languages and (iv) develop closer ties with people working in business and industry. In part 3 I discuss, first, a teaching project involving undergraduate research that is a course for our senior business students on workplace communication and, second, the development of an evaluation instrument to chart our students’ progress in terms not only of their language proficiency but also their communication knowledge and skills.

The impact of globalisation in the last 20 years has led to an overwhelming increase in the use of English as the medium through which many business people get their work done. As a result, the linguistic landscape within which we now operate as researchers and teachers has changed both rapidly and beyond all recognition. In the discussion below, I will outline a research agenda for English as a lingua franca (ELF) in business communication of relevance for scholars and practitioners with an interest in teaching language. I will discuss three main areas of enquiry, which are: (1) the further development of the existing theory concerning the use of English in business and how this impacts language teaching, including the role played by native speakers of English, (2) the influence of culture and context on the production and interpretation of English in business contexts, and (3) the extension of our existing understanding of the use of English in business contexts in order to take increasingly advanced levels of proficiency into account, as well as developing an understanding of what constitutes professional communicative competence in business. For each of these key areas I will suggest a number of tasks which could help to give substance to our research in the future.

‘Sometimes maligned for its allegedly behaviorist connotations but critical for success in many fields from music to sport to mathematics and language learning, practice is undergoing something of a revival in the applied linguistics literature’ (Long & Richards 2007, p. xi). This research timeline provides a systematic overview of the contributions of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) to the role, nature, and development of individual practice in language learning. We focus on written language practice in Tutorial CALL, corrective feedback and language awareness-raising in Intelligent CALL (ICALL), and individualization of the learning process through tailoring of learning sequences and contingent guidance.

In this plenary speech I examine multilingual interaction in a number of European regions in which minority languages are being revitalized. Education is a crucial variable, but the wider society is equally significant. The context of revitalization is no longer bilingual but increasingly multilingual. I draw on the results of a long-running project on the ‘Added value of multilingualism and diversity in educational contexts’ among secondary school students, and show that there are interesting differences and similarities between the minority language (Basque or Frisian), the majority language (Spanish or Dutch) and English. The focus on multilingualism is applied inside and outside the school. The discussion demonstrates the complexity of everyday multilingual practices and the outcomes have implications for the gap between education and society and for further research into the linkages between language proficiency and actual language practices.

This plenary paper showcases current corpus-based research on written academic English, illustrating the tight links that exist between corpus research and pedagogic applications. I first explicate Sinclair's concept of the ‘lexical approach’, which underpins much corpus research and pedagogy. I then discuss studies which focus on individual lexical items, phraseology (including lexical bundles) and rhetorical functions. Finally, I examine studies that combine Swalesian move structure analysis with corpus analysis. Throughout the paper, I highlight the importance attached to lexis in both corpus research and pedagogic applications of corpus findings in the realm of written discourse in English for Academic Purposes (EAP), covering both general and more specific purposes.

The question of whether written corrective feedback (CF) has a role to play in second language (L2) development has been controversial since Truscott (1996) published an article in Language Learning calling for the abandonment of the practice on theoretical, empirical and pedagogical grounds. As a result of his claims, an on-going debate about the efficacy of the practice has ensued while a number of dedicated researchers have focused their attention on empirically investigating whether learners benefit from the practice in terms of significantly improving their accuracy in subsequent texts over time. Responding not only to Truscott's doubts about the overall effectiveness of written CF for L2 learning and his specific doubts about whether certain types of provision could ever have a meaningful and enduring effect on acquisition, further questions about the potential impact of different variables were central to the thinking and research that followed his claims. Such variables include the linguistic focus of the feedback and the relative merits of targeting a limited number of error categories (focused feedback) rather than a more comprehensive range of error categories (unfocused feedback). While a growing body of research has begun investigating these issues over the last 15–20 years, the field is in need of replication studies before firm conclusions can be reached.

Academic writing for research publication takes place around the globe, involving, according to a recent account, 5.5 million scholars, 2,000 publishers and 17,500 research/higher education institutions (Lillis & Curry 2010: 1). Because so many scholars whose first language is not English are now using English for publication purposes and because of the research interest that has developed in the field, a specialist term has been coined, English for Research Publication Purposes (ERPP). This paper presents an overview of some issues relating to ERPP.

As applied linguists know very well, how we use language both constructs and reflects our understanding. It is therefore important that we use terms that do justice to our concerns. In this presentation, I suggest that a more apt designation than multilingual or second language acquisition (SLA) is multilingual or second language development (SLD). I give a number of reasons for why I think SLD is more appropriate. Some of the reasons that I point to are well known. Others are more current, resting on a view of language from a complex systems perspective. Such a perspective rejects the commodification of language implied by the term ‘acquisition’, instead imbuing language with a more dynamic quality, implied by the term ‘development’, because it sees language as an ever-developing resource. It also acknowledges the mutable and interdependent norms of bilinguals and multilinguals. In addition, this perspective respects the fact that from a target-language vantage point, regress in learner performance is as characteristic of development as progress. Finally, and most appropriately for AILA 2011, the term second language development fits well with the theme of the congress – harmony in diversity – because it recognizes that there is no common endpoint at which all learners arrive. For, after all, learners actively transform their linguistic world; they do not merely conform to it.