This article traces the intellectual roots and developments of the notion of competence in second language (L2) teaching and research. Since L2 teaching and research invariably concern competence of some sort (linguistic, communicative, interactional, or otherwise), there have been countless attempts to define competence from diverse theoretical…

"Variability" and "fractality," two key concepts in Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST)--the former concerning changes and variations, and the latter concerning recursiveness and self-similarities--may seem contradictory at first glance. This forum piece attempts to elucidate how the two seemingly contradictory properties can…

This study examines the testimonios of Mexican language teachers who experienced the violent and institutional imposition of neoliberal policies at the main university at the state of Puebla. Through the analysis of "testimonios," language teachers narrated their own trajectories to resist the implementation of the neoliberal policies,…

This paper explores the number marking challenges faced by L2 learners of English whose L1 is one of the classifier languages Mandarin Chinese (henceforth Chinese) or Bahasa Indonesia (henceforth Indonesian). It examines whether these groups differ in their marking of English number, and how the speaker's level of proficiency, as well as…

In the past two decades, syntactic complexity measures (e.g. the length or number of words per clause/t-unit/sentences and number of clauses per t-unit/sentence, and types of clauses used) have been widely used to determine and benchmark language proficiency development in speaking and writing. (Norris and Ortega 2009; Lu 2011). However, the…

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Stephen Krashen developed Monitor Theory--a group of hypotheses explaining second language acquisition with implications for language teaching. As the L2 scholarly community began considering what requirements theories should meet, Monitor Theory was widely criticized and dismissed, along with its teaching…

Language is on display all around us, all the time, and the study of this linguistic landscape is one of the fastest-growing areas of research in applied linguistics. This book provides an overview of how the field of Linguistic Landscape Studies has emerged and developed over the past 20 years, combined with an in-depth exploration of the…

Research Methodology (RM) is the backbone of any TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) MA programme. Although a burgeoning body of research has investigated students' attitude towards research and RM course in various disciplines, students' attitudes towards research and research methods courses in TEFL research has remained a relatively…

Accurate description of language use is central to English for academic purposes (EAP) practice. Thanks to the development of corpus tools, it has been possible to undertake systematic studies of language in academic contexts. This line of research aims to provide detailed and accurate characterization of academic communication and to ultimately…

This book applies a psycholinguistic perspective to instructed second language acquisition, seeking to bridge the gap between second language acquisition research and language teaching practices. It challenges the traditional divide between conscious and unconscious processes, or explicit and implicit learning, and re-envisions this as a continuum…

Second language acquisition (SLA) research offers valuable insight on how languages are learned and how they coexist and influence each other. Sign language learners offer unique perspectives on SLA, allowing researchers to test theories that are otherwise constrained by access to only one modality. Current literature on sign language learning…

The key to successful language learning depends on the extent to which learners are self-regulated in learning a second or foreign language (L2). In this process, learners' perceptions and beliefs about their abilities play a crucial role in predicting or controlling positive or negative emotions, motivation and the use of strategies. Therefore,…

First, we trace the history of second language acquisition (SLA) from early stages in the mid-twentieth century to today. We next consider the status of the field in today's research world with a particular focus on all aspects of methodology and, finally, we take a look at the future and discuss issues related to scientific rigor in light of Open…

This commentary discusses the issue of small samples in instructed second language acquisition research. We discuss the current state of affairs, and consider the disadvantages of small samples. We also explore other considerations regarding sample size, such as research ethics and ecological validity. We present a range of recommendations for…

The current study draws on synthetic techniques and bibliometric analysis to explore the patterns of scientific collaboration in light of methodological orientations. We examined 3,992 applied linguistics (AL) articles published in 18 top-tier journals from 2009 to 2018 and analyzed their methodological orientations and scientific collaboration.…