This introduction contains three parts: First, a presentation of the timeline, including the selection of target languages. Second, an overview of trends of development in the international research field from the 1960s up until today. Third, a list of categories used in the subsequent table of annotated works.

This study examines the experiences and motivations of language and linguistics academics who have published in potential predatory journals (PPJs). A questionnaire was administered to 2,793 academics with publications in 63 language and linguistics PPJs, and 213 of them returned their responses. A subsample of the respondents (n = 21) also contributed qualitative data through semi-structured interviews or email responses to open-ended questions. Analyses of the survey data found that the authors were mainly from Asia, mostly had a doctorate, chose the PPJs chiefly for fast publication and/or meeting degree or job requirements, were predominantly of the opinion that the PPJs were reputable, and commonly reported positive impacts of publishing in the PPJs on their studies or academic careers. A thematic analysis of the qualitative data revealed five main themes: unawareness, unrelenting publication pressures, low information literacy, social identity threat, and failure to publish in top-tier journals.

There is a great deal of variation in gains found between studies of second language (L2) incidental vocabulary learning, as well as many factors that affect learning. This meta-analysis investigated the effects of exposure to L2 meaning-focused input on incidental vocabulary learning with an aim to clarify the proportional gains that occur through meaning-focused learning. Twenty-four primary studies were retrieved providing 29 different effect sizes and a total sample size of 2,771 participants (1,517 in experimental groups vs. 1,254 in control groups). Results showed large overall effects for incidental vocabulary learning on first and follow-up posttests. Mean proportions of target words learned ranged from 9–18% on immediate posttests, and 6–17% on delayed posttests. Incidental L2 vocabulary learning gains were similar across reading (17%, 15%), listening (15%, 13%), and reading while listening (13%, 17%) conditions on immediate and delayed posttest. In contrast, the proportion of words learned in viewing conditions on immediate posttests was smaller (7%, 5%). Findings also revealed that the amount of incidental learning varies according to a range of moderator variables including learner characteristics (L2 proficiency, institutional levels), materials (text type and audience), learning activities (spacing, mode of input), and methodological features (approaches to controlling prior word knowledge).

“An extremely timely, thoughtful, and well-informed discussion in applied linguistics and beyond concerning open science. The essay seeks to engage with a broad audience and to dispel some of the persisting myths around open science and would be read fruitfully by many in the field”.

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.

This article offers insights into trends found in 74 empirical studies on teaching and learning a foreign language (FL) in pre-primary schools in 25 countries. The emerging picture is like that of primary-school programs: most are implemented in English, mostly owing to parents’ enthusiasm rather than evidence on long term FL benefits. Researchers focus on measurable outcomes in the FL rather than embedding studies in what early childhood education and language policies aim for: developing children not only in a FL, but also in their first language and emotional, cognitive, and social domains. A short literature review on how children learn languages and what necessary conditions include, is followed by the evidence empirical studies offer along themes found in them. Research has revealed encouraging results as well as weaknesses, whereas most authors frame their findings in positive terms. Overall, the younger the children the slower their rate of FL development. The field is dominated by FL experts; it would benefit from early childhood expertise to shift it towards the whole child. Although the increase in research is significant, more is necessary to build a model of pre-primary FL programs. A table available online complements the text.

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).

Throughout my professional life, I have been interested in the relationship between teachers and curriculum. As someone who has taught languages, educated teachers, and developed curriculum and materials, I have been puzzled by the separation of curriculum and teaching. In the US, this separation is encapsulated in the phrase ‘curriculum and instruction’, where they are seen as separate domains of research and responsibility (Doyle, 1992; Kaplan & Owings, 2015). Indeed, as a teacher educator, I would often hear the refrain from teachers, ‘I know how to plan a good lesson, but I'm not sure what the big picture is. How do the lessons fit together as a whole?’ I interpreted this to mean that they did not have a sense of the overall curricular structure and aims for their students’ learning. As a materials and curriculum developer, I saw my responsibility as providing a map for teachers that would show how the parts added up to a sensible whole.

The year 2020 marked the 25th year since Bonny Norton published her influential TESOL Quarterly article, ‘Social identity, investment, and language learning’ (Norton Peirce, 1995) and the fifth year since we, Darvin and Norton (2015), co-authored ‘Identity and a model of investment in applied linguistics’ in the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics. From the time Norton's 1995 piece was published, investment and motivation have been conceptually imbricated and often collocated, as they hold up two different lenses to investigate the same reality: why learners choose to learn an additional language (L2). In our 2015 article, we made the case that while it is important to ask the question, ‘Are students motivated to learn a language?’ it is equally productive to ask, ‘Are students invested in the language practices of the classroom or community?’ (Darvin & Norton, 2015, p. 37). We recognize that the relationship between language teachers and learners is unequal, and that teachers hold the power to shape these practices in diverse ways. Teachers bring to the classroom not only their personal histories and knowledge, but also their own worldviews and assumptions (Darvin, 2015), which may or may not align with those of learners. Relations of power between learners can also be unequal. As Norton and Toohey (2011, p. 421) note:

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).

“Context” has been increasingly featured and acknowledged in second language (L2) research because L2 teaching is recognised to be shaped by the environments in which it is situated. Numerous theoretical perspectives were introduced to L2 research that aim to capture the contextual forces at work in teaching and learning, including but not limited to Activity Theory, Complexity Theory, and Sociocultural Theory. Activity Theory holds that a learner's motives (human needs directed towards an object) are highly malleable, subject to the influence of such contextual variables as institutional rules, community, tools and artefacts available (see Leont'ev, 1978, 1981 who popularised Activity Theory from Sergei Rubenstein's founding and also Engeström's more current work in 1999). Complexity Theory, which has been widely adopted in both physical and social sciences, originates from physics (Martin et al., 2019). Complexity Theory was later introduced into L2 research by Diane Larsen-Freeman who posits that language learning is not only a process but a volatile and emerging system that is shaped by components of the system (e.g., learners, teachers, schools) engaging in constant and vibrant interactions (Larsen-Freeman, 2014). Sociocultural Theory highlights the sociocultural contexts where learning takes place (Lantolf, 2000; Vygotsky, 1978). Informed by a social constructivist view of learning, key concepts such as scaffolding (e.g., teachers’ support for learners) are put forward. In particular, Vygotsky argues that communication plays an indispensable role in language learning. Extrapolating Vygotsky's work to L2 research, Swain (2006) claims that languaging, dialogues among learners to discuss issues in L2 learning, is an important process of learning a L2.

Research on second language (L2) acquisition in the generative tradition (GenSLA) addresses the nature of interlanguage competence, examining the roles of Universal Grammar, the mother tongue and the input in shaping the acquisition, representation and use of second languages. This field is sometimes dismissed by applied linguists as irrelevant because it does not provide direct applications for language teaching. However, the assumption that theories must have applications involves a fundamental misconception: linguistic theories explore the nature of grammar; GenSLA theories explore the nature of language learning. No such theory entails that language must be taught in a particular way. Nevertheless, potential applications can be identified: examples are presented that describe aspects of language that do not need to be taught, properties that might benefit from instruction, and cases where textbooks provide inadequate information. I argue that linguistic theory and GenSLA theory have more to offer in terms of considering what aspects of language might or might not be taught rather than how languages should be taught.

This systematic review of 170+ journal articles showcases the current trends and developments in Turkey-based applied linguistics and language education research between 2016–2022. The current review presents similarities to the previous reviews (Alptekin & Tatar, 2011; Aydınlı & Ortaçtepe, 2018) in terms of trends and practices that indicate a vibrant research scene and a community of practice in Turkey within language education and applied linguistics research. While certain research areas such as instructional technologies remain widely popular among Turkey-based scholars, there has been growing interest in multiculturalism, social justice language education, critical pedagogy, and culturally responsive teaching. It was also clear in our analysis that the demands by the Higher Education Council for academic promotion exacerbated some of the already-existing challenges also noted in the previous reviews. Some of the concerns include pre- and post-test study designs that focus on practical concerns and outcomes rather than on processes that would lead to conceptual or theoretical development; and lack of engagement with broader (inter)disciplinary debates. We hope that this review will help establish conversations among fellow scholars in terms of future directions that applied linguistics and language education research in Turkey can take in order to contribute to the larger discussions in the field.

Given that I have been a teacher of one kind or another for practically all of my working life, starting as a high school English teacher before moving into TESOL (teaching English to speakers of other languages), I would like to suggest (in all modesty, of course!) that I am in a good position to understand the stresses of the job. In this position paper, I would like to try to explain the background to the issues of teacher stress, to identify contemporary problem areas, to suggest some possible ways to address the problems, and also to explain why tackling teacher stress is so important – both for teachers themselves, and also for the other stakeholders, especially the learners. Although this article draws essentially on the experience of language teachers and related literature, many of the issues described could apply to teachers of any subject at any level anywhere, a point that will be taken up again when suggesting areas for further research.

The language teaching landscape in Ireland has changed considerably over the last 30 years as a result of substantial and sustained inward migration into the country during this period. These social and demographic developments have added to the country's already bilingual context and created a much more varied multilingual landscape than had existed in previous decades. They have also impacted various aspects of language teaching policy, provision and methods for both indigenous and foreign languages. This article reviews research on language teaching and learning in Ireland published during the period 2012–2021. We discuss relevant work disseminated primarily in peer-reviewed journals (national and international), as well as in books, commissioned reports and chapters in edited volumes. The research and policy documents presented concern the teaching and learning of Irish, English and Modern Foreign Languages as second and/or additional languages across all levels of education. They address language teacher training contexts as well. We believe that this review of research demonstrates the extent to which recent inquiries in these domains have advanced knowledge and practice in the Irish context, and have also informed the international research community more generally.

In this paper, I first provide a brief review of how scholars have conceptualized, tested, and elaborated aptitude frameworks relevant to second language (L2) speech learning. Subsequently, I introduce an emerging paradigm that assigns a fundamental role to domain-general auditory processing (i.e., having a good ear) in L1 speech acquisition and proposes that the same faculty acts as a cornerstone of L2 speech learning (i.e., the Auditory Precision Hypothesis-L2). This hypothesis predicts that learners with more precise auditory processing ability will be able to make the most of every input opportunity, which will result in more advanced L2 speech proficiency. To close, I will provide suggestions on how scholars can assess L2 students’ auditory processing ability (e.g., our team's offline test deposited at L2 Speech Tools for Researchers & Teachers [http://sla-speech-tools.com/]) and discuss how the results can be used to maximize learners’ L2 speech learning opportunities via optimal, profile-matched training programs (e.g., explicit vs. incidental training; naturalistic vs. classroom learning; phonetic vs. auditory training).

This review provides an account of salient research topics in current Swedish research in the field of foreign language (FL) education, with the aim of making locally published work available outside Sweden. A corpus of work on English and other FLs published between 2012 and 2021 has been scrutinized. Focus has been placed on research conducted and disseminated in Sweden, in some cases adding international publications, in order to portray the work in a wider context. Research on FL learning, teaching, and assessment is reviewed in light of recent policy changes as well as a changing linguistic situation characterized by a plethora of languages spoken in society, among which Swedish as majority language and English as lingua franca share indisputable sovereignty, but where a newly-born interest in the role of other background languages than Swedish can be discerned. The study ends with a discussion of trends observed in the reviewed material and considerations in view of future research.

Instructed foreign language knowledge – that is, language skills acquired exclusively in the classroom without the benefit of any significant immersion experience – remains a vastly neglected area of studies on language learning in general and language attrition in particular. There is also little consideration of foreign language attrition and maintenance as a problem for policy or pedagogy.

The present talk will give an overview of what is and what is not known about second language (L2) attrition at the present time. It will then present the results from a pilot project that will hopefully serve as the foundation for larger studies of instructed L2 attrition in future years.

Plagiarism is a consistent source of concern for educators, and particularly so for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) practitioners, whose objective is to equip students for success across the curriculum. Plagiarism has been on the EAP research agenda for some 35 years and remains a topic of considerable research interest. While perceptions of plagiarism have been extensively investigated, a number of questions relating to the prevalence and causes of plagiarism remain unanswered, and solid evidence about effective pedagogical methods is largely lacking. This article outlines directions for future research on the topic and describes specific investigations that could be conducted.