Language tests, including international high-stakes English proficiency tests widely used around the world, are to be viewed as ideological constructs connected with power relations and center-periphery demarcations at different social levels. In this paper, we examine the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) as an instance of…

In the past decades, neoliberalism has permeated (foreign) language education, as has been discussed by critical research in the fields of: curriculum theory, applied linguistics, discourse analysis, language policy, language assessment, to name a few. Despite the fact that research on foreign language education and neoliberalism is certainly…

With the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the globe and the transition of education to fully online teaching in Iran, high school English teachers who were accustomed to teaching offline had to face a lot of challenges during this shift. In this paper, we describe the major challenges or dilemmas the first author had to surmount during his online…

Decades of theorisation and research on the teaching and learning of second-language writing have hardly created coherent theoretically profound and practically relevant understandings of writing instruction. This article discusses the possibilities and insights created by bringing personal meaningfulness into the realm of writing pedagogy.…

English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is a growing field which aims to enrich curriculum in order to bridge the gap between general knowledge of English, and academic or discipline specific use of English. This paper considers past attempts to develop consistent academic courses as it examines EAP courses in Norway and Iran, where English as a…

The ability to comprehend and use metaphors in L2 which is referred to as metaphorical competence is an important issue in second language acquisition. Metaphors are so pervasive in our life that we might not realize their presence and simply neglect them even in our first language. Different models of communicative competence have been suggested…

Cognitive Diagnostic Assessment (CDA) is a type of educational assessment that is designed to measure specific knowledge structures and processing skills in students so as to provide information about their cognitive strengths and weaknesses (Leighton & Gierl, 2007). CDA has been instrumental in turning the attention of practitioners to more…

The growing need for professional development requires the language teachers not to be mere consumers of commercial instructional materials or implementers of sets of mandated or recommended techniques, but to attempt to generate their own classroom materials, seek innovative pedagogical approaches, explore the contexts in which their designed…

This paper reports on a study investigating the potential effect of synchronous and asynchronous text-based computer-mediated communication (CMC) on oral fluency development of second-language (L2) learners. Sixty-three intermediate learners of English were randomly assigned to one of three groups (two experimental groups and one control group),…

Action research is geared to changes for the better and has the potential to assist teachers to extend their teaching skills and develop a deeper understanding of themselves, their classroom and their learners. However, in the area of applied linguistics, the viability of action research has been seriously questioned. In this article, we argue…

Method-in-use (Nunn, Describing classroom interaction in intercultural curricular research and development, University of Reading, 1996, International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 37: 23-42, 1999) is a description of the method actually being enacted through classroom interaction in a particular context. The description is…

The Communicative Ability in language testing originates from a theory of language as communication proposed by Hymes (1972) and known as "communicative competence". The literature on language testing suggests that the practicality of communicative language testing (CLT) varies depending on how the instructors and teachers conceptualize…

As with language teaching and learning, many factors are at work disregarding of which makes teaching absolutely futile. This introspective paper shows that teaching is bound to many other factors not normally regarded within the framework many teachers apply. Practicality of teaching methods is highly dependent on the kind of learners; that is,…

"Adult Language Learners: Context and Innovation" presents instructional practices that are particularly successful with adults. Adult language learners are goal oriented and direct their learning to fulfill particular needs or demands: to advance their studies, to progress up the career ladder, to follow business opportunities, to pass…

This article presents the reports from the international research correspondents (IRCs) on the topic of second-language issues and multiculturalism through an informal polling using a questionnaire in six countries. The participating IRCs include: (1) Marta Infante of Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, Chile; (2) Anita Poon of Hong Kong…