This review discusses only research on the discourse structure of classroom activities—lessons and other activities in which the teacher is a participant— with special attention to assumptions underlying alternative models (in the non-technical sense of that word). Two other reviews (Cazden 1986a; in press) also discuss the register of teachers and students (considered as the paradigmatic complement to syntagmatic structure); discourse among student peers (in contrast to talk with the teacher who has greater ascribed power as well as knowledge), and relationships between discourse and learning.

Racialized students are overrepresented in special- and English-learner education programs in the United States. Researchers have pointed to implicit bias in evaluation tools and evaluators as a cause resulting in calls for more culturally competent/relevant practices/assessments. However, this paper argues that racial overrepresentation is reflective of larger settler colonial frameworks embedded in linguistic standards that continue to drive education and language ideologies/practices globally but especially in U.S. schools. First, through an analysis of an orthoepic test used during the Parsley Massacre of 1937 on the island of Hispaniola, I present how the evaluation of accented language has been used to racialize and pathologize people. Secondly, through a comparative analysis of bilingualism in the U.S. and Canada, I show how linguistic variation is only devalued when it emerges from marginalized communities, affirming the white normative gaze as a mechanism for maintaining inequitable power structures. Finally, the paper presents how these logics are present in current manifestations of bilingual education. By indicating how racially, physically, and/or neurodivergent people are othered, this paper calls on the decolonization of applied linguistics in order to effectively address the over- and disproportionate representation of Black, Indigenous, and/or Latinx students within special- and English-learner programs.

This paper focuses on the concept of social (in)justice to examine and discuss some of the areas in the production and dissemination of knowledge in which the issue of social justice is significant and should be applied and considered. More specifically, it explores and advocates for some of the ways in which participation in, and contribution to, global scholarship can become a more socially just practice for academics, especially novice scholars and early-career researchers in the field of Applied Linguistics. It also highlights the role and agentive engagement of both established and junior members of academic communities as an important factor in demonopolizing and democratizing academic discourses and practices and making the mobilization of scholarship more diverse, inclusive, multivocal, and transformative.

Second language (L2) anxiety is the most studied affective factor in the field of second language acquisition. Numerous studies have been conducted on this emotion from different perspectives over the last few decades. These studies can be classified into three groups. The first group has tried to conceptualize and operationalize L2 anxiety and identify the different components or dimensions of the construct (e.g., Cheng, 2004; Horwitz et al., 1986). The second group has explored the impact of L2 anxiety on various motivational, behavioral, learning, and performance aspects of L2 learning (e.g., Gkonou et al., 2017). Finally, the third group has investigated different sources of L2 anxiety (Papi & Khajavy, 2021). In this manuscript, we will draw on studies from the three strands to present an overview of the state of research on this construct and conclude by discussing major issues with the conceptualization, measurement, and design of studies on L2 anxiety.

This volume of The Annual Review of Applied Linguistics explores the connections between psychology and language. In the following chapter, I will show how a field that increasingly informs psychology can also inform the psychological issues that concern applied linguists. Neurobiology and psychology have become more closely integrated in recent years as evidenced by the emergence and development of such disciplinary interfaces as biopsychology and cognitive neuroscience. The recognition that psychological phenomena are subserved by the brain is widely accepted; via developments in neuroimaging technology, the brain is becoming amenable to direct psychological investigation. In this chapter, I examine brain mechanisms that are involved in second language acquisition motivation, in cognitive/motor exploratory activity in learning, and in decision-making aspects of pragmatics in language use.

Due to their unique place and function in society as well as their position on the educational ladder, universities have had a rather belated encounter with immersion education. In fact, it was not until the late 1970s (Day & Shapson, 1993) that universities in Canada were obliged to address a range of pedagogical issues as a direct result of the growth of immersion education in schools, the increasing number of immersion graduates from schools, and the overall educational success of immersion programs. Naturally, these issues are contextually framed and dependent on the historical development of immersion in each country where immersion education occurs. In countries with larger and longer immersion education traditions, the influence on universities has been greater. Three issues are of particular importance here: (1) the linguistic needs of immersion school graduates at university, (2) principles of immersion pedagogy use at the university level, and (3) immersion teacher education. The latter issue is especially pertinent to broader questions of the preparation of second language teachers and will be addressed here.For studies exploring the nature and levels of language maintenance of immersion graduates after secondary schooling, see Harley (1994), Hart, Lapkin, Swain and Howard (1991), Wesche (1985, 1993), Wesche, Morrison, Ready, and Pawley (1990) for a comprehensive review.

The contrastive study of Japanese and English discourse structures may be divided into two major areas of inquiry. The first of these areas concerns grammatical studies which examine cohesive ties, word order constraints, and sociolinguistic variations (Hinds 1982b, Kuno 1978, Makino 1978a). The second of these areas concerns specific or implied contrasts between organizational parameters which shape the overall form of discourse. Following Longacre (1976), it is possible to differentiate, minimally, among four discourse types: expository, narrative, procedural, and hortatory.

In an earlier review for the Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, Douglas (1995) wrote, “the year 1990 represented a watershed in language testing” (p. 167). This decade, though by no means over, has taken the field even further in terms of theoretical and practical developments. A few examples should illustrate this point: For test theoreticians and researchers, models of communicative language ability have challenged the traditional skills–and–components models (Bachman 1990, Bachman and Palmer 1996); applications of Messick's (1989) expanded view of validation have balanced arguments previously made solely by measurement experts (Kunnan 1998a); discussions of policy and social considerations (McNamara 1998), fairness (Kunnan 1996; in press), critical language testing (Shohamy 1997a) and ethics and professionalism (Davies 1997a; 1997b) have added new beveled angles for debates; structural equation modeling has successfully asserted its role as useful quantitative methodology (Kunnan 1995; 1998b); and verbal protocol analysis has proved to be a viable qualitative methodology (Green 1997).

Look through the window of any second or foreign language (L2) reading classroom and, invariably, you will see the teacher and students seated with books open in front of them. This superficial similarity masks vast differences in teaching methodology, however. As the 20th century draws to a close, there are, around the world, at least four distinctive approaches to the teaching of L2 reading: grammar-translation, comprehension questions, skills and strategies, and extensive reading. After brief descriptions of these four approaches to teaching reading and their status in the reading classroom, important issues in L2 reading instruction are addressed, leading to more general concerns involving the relationship among theory, research, and teaching practice.

This article addresses the relationship between two major terms, psycho-linguistics and applied linguistics, and in the process, explores key issues in multilingual processing. A straightforward definition of psycholinguistics is provided by Kess (1991:1): ‘The field of study concerned with psychological aspects of language studies.’ In the last decade, the definition has become more restricted, leaving out more social-psychological aspects like the study of attitudes in language use. Here, psycholinguistics will be further restricted to the study of processes of language production and perception (as opposed to acquisition and attrition).

With increasing frequency, the distinction between “translation” (written product) and “interpretation” (oral product) is being recognized by those outside the profession. Interpreters especially are heartened when they see “Voice of Interpreter” flash on the screen during a newscast instead of “Voice of Translator.” Many scholars and practitioners (the terms are not mutually exclusive), however, choose the generic “translation” to include both oral and written product, some referring more specifically to “interpretation” as “oral translation” and to “simultaneous interpretation” as “simultaneous translation.”

The 1980s were dynamic years for applied linguistic researchers and practitioners involved in the integration of language and content instruction. In addition to the publication of five stimulating texts devoted to the subject (Mohan 1986, Cantoni-Harvey 1987, Crandall 1987, Enright and McCloskey 1988, and Brinton, Snow, and Wesche 1989), there was increasing attention at all school levels to curriculum development, materials development, teacher training, evaluation, and assessment, Second and foreign language educators as well educators in the fields of mathematics, science, and social science have become cognizant of the relationship between language development and the acquisition of content-specific knowledge and skills.

The scope of this review must be restricted in several ways. First the focus is on reading specifically. Although reading is but a component of the language activities called literacy, it must certainly be at the heart of whatever concept of literacy is adopted (Venezky, Wagner and Ciliberti 1990).

In light of findings from research on informal foreign/second language (L2) learning, with a focus on English as a target language and using the concept of extramural English (EE), this position paper argues that learners’ engagement in EE (through activities such as watching television or films or playing digital games) constitutes an important individual difference (ID) variable that needs to be included in studies that aim to measure L2 English proficiency or development. In addition, it is suggested that if EE as an ID variable is left out in such studies in the future, the rationale for exclusion should be clearly stated. This position paper also discusses research instruments and methods used in this area of research, the benefits and drawbacks of different methods, and identifies research gaps and under-researched learner groups. Further, it is argued that in some contexts, EE has replaced classroom activities as the starting point for and foundation of learning English.

Cooperative learning is designed to engage learners actively in the learning process. Through inquiry and interaction with peers in small groups, learners work together towards a common goal. As a major movement within the broad context of the educational mainstream, cooperative learning has specific relevance for literacy and language learning. Communicative approaches to second/foreign language teaching can effectively draw on the principles and characteristics of cooperative learning to make language teaching and learning more effective. This joining of communicative instructional approaches with cooperative learning should be effective whether applied to the second/foreign language classroom or to the sheltered classroom integrating language learning with content-area learning.

Language teaching has traditionally adopted one of two complementary orientations towards its subject matter. It has either taken the view that language is a system and the primary objective of teaching must therefore be to insure that the system is mastered or it has taken the view that language is essentially a set of artifacts (texts and the like). System oriented language teaching (e. g., the grammar-translation method or the structural approach) has typically emphasized the generality of linguistic rules and attempted to describe and teach “the language as a whole,” whereas text-oriented approaches (such as, for instance, situational and communicative language teaching) have attempted to teach an appropriate sub-set of relevant texts which are taken to define “what the learner really needs.” The characteristic fault of system-based approaches. which explains how otherwise sane men were able to produce absurdities like “ The pen of my aunt is in the sporran of the Scotsman” [A good example of the genitive, my boy!] or pattern practices like “Are you English?” (cue: my brother) trained to fall victim to these little nonsenses, but what are the equivalent crimes of text-based language teaching? They are less easy to spot, but they generally take the form of “wasting police time.” If, as text-based teaching impliesm every text is potential grist to the learning mill, there is no reliable way of distinguishing between texts which are important because they stretch the learner's command of the target language and those which merely have been obvious.

This article highlights the institutional harm that many dual language bilingual education (DLBE) programs can impose upon Black American children. By uncovering the ways that bilingual education is often complicit in educational injustice for Black children, this article argues for a closer interrogation of unquestioned DLBE policies and practices through an analysis that gives centrality to race and intersectionality. In this piece, a composite counterstory is crafted using African American Language to powerfully facilitate a Critical Race Theory-informed critique of DLBE's institutional structures and practices that detail the experiences of many Black children in DLBE programs. A recommendation for intersectional approaches to DLBE that center, support, and advocate for intersectional consciousness across all Black identities is offered.

Few studies have detailed the emergence and growth of the oral language and discourse characteristics of school-age students at different grades and across time (Bailey, 2010; Hoff, 2013). Yet general education teachers and English language specialists need well-articulated, preferably empirically derived progressions of language learning to support their students’ oral language development, particularly with those students who are acquiring English as a new or second language. Explanation skills, which encompass the development of many different language and discourse features, were the focus of this study. The language learners whose elicited oral explanations were used to characterize the order of emergence of features were in kindergarten and third grade (5–6 and 8–9 years old). These students were acquiring English in school with predominantly Spanish as their first language. Development of explanations by a cohort of English monolingual or proficient students provides grade-specific comparison language trajectories. The results are placed within the context of a formative assessment framework in order to assist teachers and students in placing explanations at different phases of sophistication on the progressions. This facilitates charting development and identifying with greater specificity which language and discourse features might be effective targets of contingent instruction to promote students’ oral explanation abilities.

This study provides a fragment of a contrastive analysis of written texts from Hindi and English. Hindi is an Indo-Aryan language used in South Asia in several varieties by approximately three hundred million people. It is one of the four major world language in terms of number of speakers. In this study, I present a number of sample texts from Hindi, both of the narrative and the expository kind, and discuss them in the theoretical frameworks of contemporary discourse analysis.

Is it the age of second language acquisition (AoA) that primarily determines the manner of cerebral representation of multiple languages in the brain, or is it proficiency? Here, we review recent neuroimaging studies that aimed at investigating AoA effects by comparing early with late (usually with L2 acquisition onset after 6 years of age) bilinguals during a variety of language tasks on a number of languages. Most studies did indeed report AoA effects. Of particular interest is that the region mainly found to functionally differ between early and late bilinguals is the left inferior frontal gyrus, which was modulated during syntactic processing, word generation, and sentence generation. Additionally, differences were observed in gray-matter density of the posterior parietal cortex as well as in right-hemisphere involvement. Interestingly, despite some convergence of findings from a localizational point of view, underlying causes of organizational and functional differences for the effect of AoA on bilingual language processing still remain to be uncovered. Hypotheses currently used for explaining activation differences are described (notably cortical efficiency, executive control, neuroanatomical changes, and right-hemisphere involvement) in relation to AoA and language proficiency.