As a language teacher, teacher educator, and researcher over the past 40 years, my interests have been centered in classrooms where students are learning something else while also learning language. In the 1980s, as an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher, my students were learning ‘English for specific purposes,’ where they brought knowledge from their fields, working as economists, in business or tourism, or as drivers and receptionists, and I saw how language teaching needed to focus on the language and discourse patterns that would be most relevant to the ways they would use English in their professional roles. In the 1990s, as a teacher educator and director of a university English as a Second Language (ESL) writing program, I saw how students' academic writing goals needed to be foregrounded. In the last 20 years, as a researcher in elementary and secondary schools, I engaged with, but also saw, shortcomings in ‘content-based’ language teaching (e.g., Moore & Schleppegrell, 2020; Schleppegrell, 2007, 2016, 2020; Schleppegrell et al., 2004).

Increased work connectivity and study mobility over national boundaries in recent decades has led to a shift in the kind of English as a Second Language (ESL) instruction implemented in many educational institutions. Instruction to develop learners’ general English language proficiency may appear as a time-consuming and abstract endeavour. Instead, many institutions implement English for Specific Purposes (ESP), including English for Academic Purposes (EAP) type instruction. In ESP, the aim is to help students develop the specialized academic and work-related linguistic registers they need to function in target settings where English is used as a medium of instruction or in businesses and workplace communication. A great deal of ESP research has now been conducted to build linguistic descriptions of specialized registers. Rather less research has focused on the learning of such specialized registers. This article identifies areas for a research agenda to develop an understanding of learning a specialized register. It sets out two sites for enquiry, namely, learning in a target workplace or disciplinary study setting and learning in instructed ESP, and four topics for enquiry, namely, processes of learning, conditions for learning, learning trajectories, and transfer of learning. Example tasks are suggested for research into learning in target settings.

Written corrective feedback (WCF) is a ubiquitous pedagogical activity in second language (L2) classrooms and has become a key area of inquiry in L2 writing research. While there have been several reviews on experimental WCF research, there is not yet a synthesis of naturalistic classroom studies where the type and amount of feedback provided on students' writing performance is not manipulated or controlled. This state-of-the-art article intends to fill the gap by providing a comprehensive and critical review of naturalistic WCF studies in L2 writing, with significant implications for practice and research. A systematic search generated 50 empirical studies that met our inclusion criteria for the current review, which revealed four major themes: (1) teacher WCF practices in L2 writing classrooms, (2) L2 learner responses to WCF, (3) stakeholders’ beliefs and perspectives on WCF, and (4) WCF-related motivation and emotions. Based on the reviewed evidence, we propose pedagogical implications for enhancing teacher WCF practices and student learning, as well as potential avenues for further exploration. This article contributes to a nuanced understanding of current empirical advances in naturalistic research on WCF in L2 writing, providing insights to inform WCF pedagogy and new lines of inquiry.

This paper explores Chalmers and Glasziou's (2009) notion of ‘research waste’ from healthcare research to examine what it can offer the field of applied linguistics. Drawing on examples from both disciplines, we unpack Macleod et al.'s (2014) five research waste categories: (1) asking the wrong research questions, (2) failing to situate new research in the context of existing research, (3) inefficient research regulation/management, (4) failing to disseminate findings, and (5) poor research reporting practices. We advance this typology to help applied linguists identify and reduce avoidable research waste and improve the relevance, quality, and impact of their research.

In this article, which is based on my AAAL 2023 plenary talk, I argue that researchers may be contributing to widening the never-ending gap between research and practice. At least, there is such a possibility given that researchers, including myself, have rarely investigated their own beliefs and practices related to classroom teaching. In the first part, I overview research of the research–practice relationship and problematize the epistemological clash between two groups of professionals, that is, teachers and researchers. In the second part, I focus on researchers as a profession who have significant potential in contributing to education. In the third part, I share concrete ways of tackling researchers' obstacles in communicating with practitioners if, and when, they wish to be useful for real-world education, including: (a) adjusting the nature of research, and (b) improving communication methods. In conclusion, I propose a model in which the research–practice relationship can be more equitable, effective, and mutually beneficial.

The increasing recognition of the limitations of physical mobility programs has led Foreign Language departments to consider online approaches such as Virtual Exchange (VE) and Blended Mobility as alternatives in international education. These online approaches have the potential to promote inclusion and diversity by providing opportunities for student cohorts who are unable to participate in traditional mobility programs. However, there are still challenges and barriers that need to be addressed, related to foreign language competence, digitalization, and structural gaps in educational systems. In this paper, I review the arguments and the evidence for and against the belief that VE can be a force for greater inclusion in international learning, before going on to explore the issue of equity of engagement in VE projects.

This written version of a plenary to the Language Testing Research Colloquium relates research into second language speaking task performance to language testing. A brief review of models of communicative competence and of speaking is provided. Then, two major areas within testing are discussed: the concepts of difficulty and ability for use. The next section covers research into spoken task-based performance, covering effects from task conditions, and from task characteristics. In addition, the measurement of such performance is described and briefly compared with performance rating in testing. Then, the final section relates the task research findings to language testing. A framework for testing spoken performance is outlined, and the general claim made that effective sampling through tests, in order to generalise to real-world performance, can usefully draw on findings from second language task research, as well as the distinction between Conceptualiser and Formulator processes.

Interest in second language (L2) speech comprehensibility, or listeners’ perceived ease or difficulty of understanding a given utterance, has seen continual growth since Munro and Derwing's (1995) seminal publication in Language Learning. While recognizing the body of knowledge that has developed in the 25 plus years since Munro and Derwing's study, in the present paper we look to the future as we consider what an active and informative research agenda might look like for the next 10–15 years. In this regard, we propose four primary areas of future research, including a need to: (1) extend inquiry beyond a primary focus on L2 English speech, (2) explore comprehensibility more thoroughly as a social construct, (3) investigate the effects of more targeted task manipulations, and (4) delve deeper into the effects of comprehensibility-oriented instruction. We additionally discuss the need for more replication in L2 comprehensibility research while also promoting several scholarly disciplines we feel can greatly inform future research, such as task-based literature.

In recent years, interest in using captioned videos for second language learning has grown immensely, partly owing to the explosion of available materials and the rapid increase in viewing platforms. The captioning affords many learners access to authentic videos ordinarily out of their reach, and teachers often employ the videos to help improve their learners’ listening. However, there is the view that learners mainly just read the captions, and that the viewing largely enhances their reading skills, instead. There is an increasing amount of research investigating this issue, much of which needs to be further verified through replication. This article outlines how three key relevant studies may be replicated, with an emphasis on examining the impact of the captioned viewing on the learners’ listening. Two of the studies, by Taylor (2005) and Winke et al. (2013), examine viewers’ processing strategies, which can include the use of the audio, caption and visual modalities. The other study, by Rodgers and Webb (2017), examines how viewing over the long term impacts learners’ comprehension.

Ronald P. Leow is Professor (Applied Linguistics) in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and Language Program Director of Spanish Language Instruction at Georgetown University. He has initiated and published (over 100 articles and chapters) in several strands of research that include language curriculum development, research methodology, cognitive processes and depth of processing in language learning, (written and computerized) corrective feedback, textual enhancement, reactivity, and CALL. He has contributed to the field his 2015 Model of the L2 Learning Process in ISLA (in Explicit learning in the L2 classroom: A student-centered approach, Routledge) and his 2020 Feedback Processing Framework (in R. M. Manchón (Ed.), Writing and language learning. Advancing research agendas, John Benjamins) to provide a cognitive account for how L2 data and feedback are processed by L2 learners. His i10-index is 58 with over 6,500 citations.

John Flowerdew is a Visiting Chair at the University of Lancaster and a Visiting Research Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. He was previously a Professor at City University of Hong Kong and at the University of Leeds, UK. His research is in the fields of Applied Linguistics and Discourse Analysis. His books include Academic listening: Research perspectives (CUP); Research perspectives on English for academic purposes (with M. Peacock) (CUP); Second language listening: Theory and practice (with L. Miller) (CUP); Academic discourse (Longman); Discourse in English language education (Routledge); Signalling nouns in discourse: A corpus-based discourse approach (with R. W. Forest) (CUP); Discourse in context (Bloomsbury); The Routledge handbook of critical discourse studies (with J. Richardson); Discipline-specific writing: Theory into practice (with T. Costley) (Routledge), and Introducing English for research publication purposes (with P. Habibie (Routledge).

In this position paper, we argue that second language (L2) pragmatic research needs to explore new avenues for integrating speech acts and interaction, by proposing a radically minimal, finite and interactional typology of speech acts. While we will introduce what we mean by integrating speech acts and interaction in detail below, the following argument helps us to summarise the issue we consider in this study:

James Dean Brown (“JD”) is Professor Emeritus of Second Language Studies at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He has spoken and taught in places ranging from Albuquerque to Zagreb and published hundreds of articles and 27 books on language testing, curriculum design, research methods, and connected speech. His books on reduced forms and connected speech are: Perspectives on teaching connected speech to second language learners, edited with K. Kondo-Brown (University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa NFLRC, 2006); New ways of teaching connected speech, Editor (TESOL, 2012a); and Shaping students’ pronunciation: Teaching the connected speech of North American English, co-authored with D. Crowther (Routledge, 2022).

Pauline Foster was Professor of Applied Linguistics at St. Mary's University until her retirement in 2020, and is currently a Senior Research Associate at University College, London. Pauline has published her research widely, including papers on task-based language performance, classroom interaction, idiomaticity, and the development of instruments for oral language analysis. Pauline's i-10-index is 29, with more than 10,500 citations.

The massive increase in the use of English Medium Instruction (EMI) in universities around the world has been accompanied by an ever-growing body of publications. The majority focus on EMI policies, teacher identities, and teachers’ and students’ attitudes towards EMI, whilst there seems to be little research into pedagogical approaches to language and literacy support for students as well as into practices in EMI teacher education, areas that are fundamental to the successful delivery of EMI. Recommendations come predominantly from conceptual papers (e.g. Dafouz, 2018, 2021; Galloway & Rose, 2021; Lasagabaster, 2018), and it is noticeable that some of these papers, in line with other EMI publications, rarely draw on English for Academic Purposes (EAP), a field that offers a rich set of theories and practices relating to student support and teacher education that are based on a decades-old research history.

Ema Ushioda is a professor and Head of the Department of Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick. She has been interested in motivation and autonomy in language learning for over 30 years, particularly from pedagogical and qualitative research perspectives. Recent books include Teaching and researching motivation (3rd ed.), co-authored with Zoltán Dörnyei (Routledge, 2021), and Language learning motivation: An ethical agenda for research (Oxford University Press, 2020).