Language TeachingPub Date : 2025-02-14DOI: 10.1017/s0261444824000405
Mark McAndrews
{"title":"Practitioners respond to Widdowson and Yazdi-Amirkhiz “Webinar on the subject of English and applied linguistics”. Language Teaching, 56, 393–401","authors":"Mark McAndrews","doi":"10.1017/s0261444824000405","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444824000405","url":null,"abstract":"In their “Webinar on the subject of English and applied linguistics”, Widdowson and Yazdi-Amirkhiz (2023) argues for the need to “rethink orthodox ideas about the relationship between applied linguistics and English language teaching that have been promoted in the past and still prevail” (p. 393). In the following commentary, I describe examples from my experiences as a language teacher and teacher trainer that address two of Widdowson's critiques: the supposed idealization of native-speaker competence in applied linguistics, and the impracticality of applied linguistics research.","PeriodicalId":47770,"journal":{"name":"Language Teaching","volume":"208 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-02-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143417175","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Language TeachingPub Date : 2025-01-30DOI: 10.1017/s0261444824000351
Kailun Wang, Rui Yuan, Peter I. De Costa
{"title":"A critical review of English medium instruction (EMI) teacher development in higher education: From 2018 to 2022","authors":"Kailun Wang, Rui Yuan, Peter I. De Costa","doi":"10.1017/s0261444824000351","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444824000351","url":null,"abstract":"The past few years have witnessed an emergent growth of both academic and practical works on English medium instruction (EMI) teachers' professional development. This paper presents a critical analysis of 30 empirical studies on EMI teacher development in a wide range of higher educational settings from 2018 to 2022. Through a systematic process of paper selection and review, we have identified three general routes to EMI teacher development, namely: (1) formal training activities; (2) opportunities for teacher collaboration; and (3) self-initiated practices. For each route, we presented a critical appraisal of their design and implementation, as well as reported gains and challenges. Meanwhile, we also conducted a critical analysis of the methodological issues pertaining to the selected papers. Overall, we argue that EMI teacher development in higher education is largely construed as a hybrid, contested, and transformative enterprise featured by EMI teachers' constant boundary-crossing at different levels to seek professional growth in linguistic, pedagogical, cultural, and psychological domains. During this process, EMI teachers may encounter conflicted dispositions, power asymmetries, and individual contradictions. Such a process thus requires EMI teachers to rethink, reexamine, and reflect critically on their accustomed preconceptions and practices, in order to facilitate transformation and achieve sustainability in the long run. The review also presents implications for EMI teachers, teacher educators, policymakers, and researchers on effectively facilitating EMI teacher development in higher education.","PeriodicalId":47770,"journal":{"name":"Language Teaching","volume":"84 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143056538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Language TeachingPub Date : 2025-01-27DOI: 10.1017/s0261444824000491
Emily Yuko Cousins, Peter Brereton
{"title":"Practitioners respond to Kathleen Graves’ ‘Mind the gap: A tale of two curriculum fallacies’","authors":"Emily Yuko Cousins, Peter Brereton","doi":"10.1017/s0261444824000491","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444824000491","url":null,"abstract":"<p>As Kathleen Graves argues in her 2023 article, the belief that students learn best when teachers deliver a curriculum exactly as written is a common fallacy, based on an underlying assumption that ‘the institutional curriculum is the most important determinant of what happens in the classroom’ (p. 200). Graves stresses that, in reality, the institutional curriculum itself does not guarantee effective learning and that, instead, it is up to teachers to modify, adapt, or ‘enact’ the curriculum for it to make sense and work effectively in each unique context (p. 200). In our roles as academic writing instructors at a university in Japan, we are simultaneously teachers and curriculum developers. As such, we were drawn to this article and have examined how Graves’ ideas relate to our teaching beliefs and experiences. In this response article, we first discuss issues caused by an overemphasis on the institutional as well as on the enacted curricula. We then highlight the importance of building a program culture that invites open dialogue about how teachers creatively adapt a given curriculum in order to involve teachers meaningfully in course development.</p>","PeriodicalId":47770,"journal":{"name":"Language Teaching","volume":"25 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143044270","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Language TeachingPub Date : 2025-01-27DOI: 10.1017/s0261444824000478
Shaofeng Li, Ling Ou, Icy Lee
{"title":"The timing of corrective feedback in second language learning","authors":"Shaofeng Li, Ling Ou, Icy Lee","doi":"10.1017/s0261444824000478","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444824000478","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The timing of corrective feedback (CF), alternatively called feedback timing, refers to the choice of a timepoint for providing corrections on second language (L2) errors or making comments on the appropriacy of L2 learners' verbal or nonverbal behaviors. A typical distinction related to the notion of feedback timing is between immediate and delayed feedback, but what constitutes immediate or delayed has been interpreted and defined in different ways. In one stream of research, immediate feedback is operationalized as feedback provided during a learning task and delayed feedback as feedback provided after a task is completed (Arroyo & Yilmaz, 2018*; Li Zhu & Ellis, 2016a*; Quinn, 2014*). One methodological variation in this distinction is interim feedback, which is provided after the first task is completed and before the second task is started (Li, Li, & Qian, under review). Interim feedback is relevant or possible when multiple tasks are performed. It refers to feedback provided during the interval(s) between tasks. Interim feedback is different from delayed feedback in that the latter refers to feedback provided after the task (if there is only one task) or all tasks (if there are multiple tasks) are completed and there is no further task performance following the feedback session. This way of conceptualizing feedback timing is based on the positioning of feedback during a task cycle, instead of the proximity to errors. Another way to examine feedback timing is to distinguish feedback provided immediately after an error is made and feedback delayed until a later time in the instructional cycle, such as one week later (Lavolette, Polio, & Kahng, 2015*). In this case, both immediate and delayed feedback can occur either during or after the completion of a learning task. A third way is to define feedback timing options in terms of their relation to instruction, namely whether feedback is provided immediately after explicit instruction or at a later stage after learners complete some practice activities (Fu & Li, 2022*). It should be clarified that this way of operationalizing feedback timing is markedly different from that in other studies in that it focuses on feedback's relation to instruction instead of errors. To conclude this section, it is necessary to point out that the conceptualization and operationalization of feedback timing should be reconsidered in L2 research. Feedback timing is not merely a matter of the length of interval or the distance between errors and feedback, and other parameters of the instructional system where errors occur are also involved or relevant, such as the distance between feedback and instruction, the positioning of feedback in a task cycle (such as within, after, or between tasks), and so on. These parameters are important because they contribute to the effectiveness of different timing options. Despite the variation in the operationalization of feedback timing, we argue that it is a uni","PeriodicalId":47770,"journal":{"name":"Language Teaching","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2025-01-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143044330","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Language TeachingPub Date : 2024-12-20DOI: 10.1017/s0261444824000442
Peter Skehan
{"title":"A personal bookshelf of foreign language aptitude publications","authors":"Peter Skehan","doi":"10.1017/s0261444824000442","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444824000442","url":null,"abstract":"Like many in the profession, from the United Kingdom certainly, the teaching of English was a second, or more accurately, third career for me. After periods as a clinical psychologist and primary school teacher, the lure of travel took me to France. The need to earn money, the discovery that the choices about how to do this were limited, led to a move into teaching English as a Foreign Language. And, again like many in the profession, there was the slow realisation that I had stumbled into a career, and that language teaching was not to be a temporary interlude in the sun.","PeriodicalId":47770,"journal":{"name":"Language Teaching","volume":"89 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142869843","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Language TeachingPub Date : 2024-12-13DOI: 10.1017/s0261444824000375
Shulin Yu, Emily Di Zhang, Chunhong Liu
{"title":"Research into practice: Digital multimodal composition in second language writing","authors":"Shulin Yu, Emily Di Zhang, Chunhong Liu","doi":"10.1017/s0261444824000375","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444824000375","url":null,"abstract":"Digital multimodal composing (DMC) has been valued as an engaging pedagogy in language teaching and learning in recent decades. Although research on DMC is flourishing and evidences its benefits for students' development as second language (L2) users and writers, there are some missing links between research findings and classroom practices. In this article, we examine three kinds of relationships between research and practice with regard to DMC: areas in which research findings have not been well applied, areas in which research findings have been reasonably well applied, and areas in which research findings have been usefully applied. As recent research–practice frameworks in education research emphasize a collaborative relationship between researchers and practitioners, we argue that L2 writing researchers' and teacher educators' reflections and experiences are crucial to facilitate the dialogue between DMC research and practice in writing contexts. We suggest that DMC should be incorporated into L2 teacher education programs so that instructors are equipped with the necessary knowledge and competence to design, implement, and assess students' DMC productions.","PeriodicalId":47770,"journal":{"name":"Language Teaching","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142815630","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Language TeachingPub Date : 2024-12-12DOI: 10.1017/s0261444824000284
Mark D. Johnson, Mahmoud Abdi Tabari
{"title":"Linguistic complexity in second language writing: Insight from studies on task planning","authors":"Mark D. Johnson, Mahmoud Abdi Tabari","doi":"10.1017/s0261444824000284","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444824000284","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Task planning and its effect on the complexity of second language (L2) written production have been studied extensively. However, the results of these studies are inconclusive, and at times contradictory, potentially as a result of variation in metrics of linguistic complexity. This study is an extension of earlier research syntheses and quantitative meta-analyses on the effects of planning on oral and written L2 production. It examines the identification and selection of linguistic complexity metrics in previous research on planning and its subsequent effects on the linguistic complexity of written L2 production. This research-focused synthesis of studies surveys construct definitions and operational definitions of linguistic complexity in the research domain and provides an overview of rationales for metric selection in the included studies. Methodological implications for future research are discussed in light of the findings.</p>","PeriodicalId":47770,"journal":{"name":"Language Teaching","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142810162","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Language TeachingPub Date : 2024-12-10DOI: 10.1017/s0261444824000338
Timothy Hampson, Jim McKinley
{"title":"Systematic review, systematic bias? An example from EMI research","authors":"Timothy Hampson, Jim McKinley","doi":"10.1017/s0261444824000338","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444824000338","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Based on the rigorous systematicity assumed in systematic review methodology, it is no surprise that a prominent review such as Macaro et al.'s (2018) on English medium instruction (EMI) has been used as a basis for subsequent EMI research. However, in this article, we explore the ways in which the focus of systematic reviews can be necessarily narrowed and how this poses a risk to research when readers perceive them as offering definitive conclusions on all aspects of a subject. This article addresses two significant trends in applied linguistics. First, systematic review – that is, the use of formalised systems when reviewing literature – has become far more prominent and therefore more impactful than traditional reviews as a methodology (Chong & Plonsky, 2023). Second, there has been an explosive growth in interest in EMI research (Curle et al., 2024). There are further parallels between the two trends, given that both systematic review and EMI are umbrella terms that cover a wide range of research types. As we will see, there is perhaps more disagreement over how to conduct a systematic review than lay readers would suspect. Similarly, EMI is a broader field of research than appears in its most prominent systematic review article. Studies into EMI have explored policy, language learning, the effect on subject knowledge, attitudes towards EMI, ownership of English, and so on. Thus, while EMI is a growingly recognised field of study, it is not always clear what it means to ‘study EMI’.</p>","PeriodicalId":47770,"journal":{"name":"Language Teaching","volume":"61 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142796801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Language TeachingPub Date : 2024-12-05DOI: 10.1017/s0261444824000314
Mark Andrew James
{"title":"Teaching for transfer of second language learning: A proposed research agenda","authors":"Mark Andrew James","doi":"10.1017/s0261444824000314","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444824000314","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Students' learning transfer is a fundamental goal across contexts of second language (L2) teaching and is therefore a worthwhile topic for L2 teaching research. Building on trends in research on teaching for transfer in L2 education and in other education and training contexts, this article proposes an agenda for future research on teaching for transfer of L2 learning. This includes a description of six specific research tasks and research designs that could be used with these tasks. The six tasks are to investigate: (1) the relationship between L2 teaching and transfer distance, (2) the relationship between L2 learners' transfer motivation and learning transfer, (3) the impact of L2 teaching on learners' transfer motivation, (4) the relationship between transfer climate and L2 learning transfer, (5) the impact of L2 teaching on learners' ability to deal with unsupportive transfer climates, and (6) L2 learners' transfer preparedness and its relationship with learning transfer.</p>","PeriodicalId":47770,"journal":{"name":"Language Teaching","volume":"77 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142776576","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Language TeachingPub Date : 2024-11-15DOI: 10.1017/s0261444824000272
Carol Griffiths
{"title":"The native/non-native debate: A practitioner responds","authors":"Carol Griffiths","doi":"10.1017/s0261444824000272","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/s0261444824000272","url":null,"abstract":"<p>It is, perhaps, with some surprise that I find the native/non-native divide again attracting attention. The first I remember of this being an issue was when we were informed that the native speaker was dead (Paikeday, 1985). Needless to say, to those of us who did not feel at all deceased, this came as a surprise, but the announcement certainly attracted attention. The next contribution to the debate that I remember was Peter Medgyes's (1992) question regarding whether native or non-native was worth more. And so the dispute has continued spasmodically until the present, when we find two pieces on the subject within two recent issues of <span>Language Teaching</span> (Llurda & Calvet-Terré, 2024; Selvi et al., 2024).</p>","PeriodicalId":47770,"journal":{"name":"Language Teaching","volume":"246 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142637140","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}