In his state-of-the-art review Amos Paran presents a very positive outlook on the use of literature in language teaching and suggests that in EFL, at last, there has been a move towards integrating language and literature. Reviewing recent research on reading, learning, and teaching literature in a variety of foreign languages, he focuses on the definition of literature, the language of literature, and on textbooks, and looks at emerging research in this area. Principled evidence is emerging which shows the benefits of using literature; this has much to offer language learning, as it combines attention to meaning with attention to form. The paper is accompanied by a comparative review of books by Heather Hewitt.

The Editor and Board of Language Teaching are pleased to announce that the recipient of the 2007 Christopher Brumfit thesis award is Dr Irina Elgort.

The resurgence in the use of literature in language teaching has been accompanied by an increasing number of research articles in this area. Research (in a number of second languages) has looked at the type of interactions and the type of language that arise from classroom discussions about literature, as well as at the views of teachers and learners. Importantly, the reactions that learners have to incorporating literature in their language lessons are linked to the type of approach and type of task that are used in the classroom. The paper surveys the existing research, as well as evidence from practitioners about approaches that are used and the range of works and authors that are taught.

Research on reading skills transfer has taken shape in two major disciplines: second language (L2) acquisition and reading. Inevitably, its evolution reflects major conceptual shifts in their respective research sub-fields. In L2 research, as a case in point, transfer was initially viewed as interference stemming from first language (L1) structural properties. This view, however, was significantly altered by the subsequent postulation that the language proficiency underlying cognitively demanding tasks, such as literacy and academic learning, is largely shared across languages, and therefore, once acquired in one language, it promotes literacy development in another (Cummins 1979). Reflecting the latter view, the current conceptualizations of transfer uniformly underscore the facilitative nature of previously learned competencies as resources available to L2 learners (e.g. Genesee et al. 2007; Koda 2008).

My previous review (of 2004 and 2005 together) was delayed for reasons beyond my control and therefore could not appear as planned in the journal, but the publisher generously agreed to make it available on-line through their website, where it can be accessed (see Johnstone 2006). In the interim the journal has changed. The abstracts are no longer there, replaced by a range of different types of contribution. The absence of the abstracts might tempt the reader of the present review to read it in a somewhat different way from before by regarding what I have to say about each article as a kind of abstract. This would be a mistake, because I have never attempted to provide a balanced summary of any article. For a balanced summary, the reader should go to the abstract of the particular article itself, most of which are quite easy to find on-line. In discussing an article, my purpose is simply to select something which I find interesting and maybe reflects a trend.

The last decade has seen increasing attention given to the notion of genre and its application in language teaching and learning. Genre represents how writers typically use language to respond to recurring situations, pointing to the fact that texts are most successful when they employ conventions that other members of the community find familiar and convincing. This community-based nature of genres suggests that their features will differ across disciplines, encouraging teachers to research the features of the texts their students need in order to make these explicit in their classes. I examine some of the research understandings and practical applications of these views by looking at what the approach offers teachers of academic writing.

As more and more teachers become aware of corpus resources and their applications, questions arise as to how best to prepare teachers in training appropriately to access and interpret corpus information. This is important as an element of materials evaluation as more and more types of materials and resources become corpus-informed. To date, relatively little attention has been given in teacher education programmes to the growing influence of corpora and the skills of evaluating and using corpora, but such skills will become increasingly important as the influence of corpora becomes more dominant in our profession. In this talk I argue that a shift is needed in the relationship between teachers, academics and publishers, from the teacher seen as consumer to the teacher as participant in the corpus revolution. I then consider the questions which need to be asked in evaluating corpora and the pedagogical resources which are based upon them. I look at the strengths and weaknesses of available corpus resources, and how corpus statistical output can be interpreted. Finally, I touch on the issue of reflective practice corpora within teacher education.

The rationale for the seminar was primarily that there are links between language testing and assessment on one hand and applied linguistics on the other which could be mutually beneficial, but are not necessarily perceived as such. Secondly, it was suggested that research in language assessment and applied linguistics have been perceived as distinct, with the roles of language testing and assessment in applied linguistics relatively unexplored, an artificial divide that Bachman & Cohen (1998), for example, argue should be bridged (see also Bachman & Palmer 1996; Shohamy 2001). An additional motivation for proposing this conference was to build on the growing presence of assessment and testing concerns within applied linguistics, not merely to address issues of visibility but, importantly, to contribute to a research agenda between different research communities within our (wider) applied linguistics community. To this end, we asked our keynote speakers and those who submitted abstracts to focus explicitly on reciprocity between the fields.

The Centre for Applied Linguistics was established in 1983 and has grown from a relatively small teaching unit to a large centre engaged in a wide variety of activities under the broad heading of Applied Linguistics. Our work includes English language teaching, teacher education, undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in applied linguistics, development of teaching and research resources, and small- and large-scale research.