Ernesto Macaro is Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics in the Department of Education at the University of Oxford, UK. He was the founding director of the EMI Oxford Research Group (formerly the Centre for Research and Development in English Medium Instruction) in the Department of Education. His research focuses on second language learning strategies and on the interaction between teachers and

It has been a long time since Jack Richards and I (Pennington and Richards, 1986) noted that pronunciation, once a central concern of language teaching, had been sidelined in response to the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) movement emphasising meaning over form. Since then, attention to pronunciation has been revived, with greater attention to suprasegmental phonology and other contextual aspects

As English as a lingua franca (ELF) continues its global expansion, the need to deal with related pedagogical questions becomes more urgent. Although there have been some studies on ELF-aware students, there is also a need for inspiring ELF-aware teachers, especially at the pre-service stage so that they begin their professional lives with an ELF-aware mindset. The study reported here aimed to explore

In order to position the notion of identity as more central to theory and practice in TESOL, a survey is presented of how the notion of identity contributes to our understanding of the nature of the teacher self, second language learning and teacher learning in language teaching. Available theory and research is reviewed to illustrate the sources of teacher and learner identity and the multifaceted

Explicit pronunciation instruction enhances production of intelligible, comprehensible, and fluent second language (L2) speech. Additionally, task-based instruction (TBI) enhances the production of segmentals and suprasegmentals, and promotes awareness of L2 forms in pronunciation. Since most previous research on TBI in L2 pronunciation learning has been carried out in laboratory settings, it is necessary

Despite the rapid expansion of English-as-a-medium-of-instruction (EMI) programs in higher education, EMI teacher education is still in its infancy. This viewpoint paper analyses what language specialists can do and become in EMI teacher education in university settings. Specifically, the paper argues that language specialists can take on a new role as EMI teacher educators and contribute to EMI teaching

Adult second language (L2) learning often exhibits great variability in its rate and outcome. Although research shows that learning trajectories are partly shaped by social and contextual factors (e.g. Larson-Hall, 2008), certain learner factors play an important role in enhancing L2 pronunciation learning by helping L2 learners notice and process input efficiently, whereas certain learner factors

Relevant research has seen a growing recognition of the crucial role pronunciation plays in teaching English as an International Language (EIL), in achieving effective communication and its close link to the mastery of other aspects of language teaching and learning. In spite of its recognised importance, pronunciation is still a marginalised skill in many EIL programmes due to EIL teachers’ lack of

Interaction is seen by many English language teachers and scholars as an essential part of face-to-face English language classrooms. Teachers require specific competencies to effectively use interaction as a tool for mediating and assisting learning. These can be referred to as classroom interactional competence (CIC). However, the situation created by the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic which began

The use of English to teach content subjects has been a growing trend in many parts of the world. It is labelled in a variety of ways, such as content-based learning, content and language integrated learning, immersion education, theme-based language teaching, and bilingual education, but it is referred to in this paper as English-medium instruction (EMI). The expansion of EMI worldwide has resulted

Although research in critical literacy has long been conducted in English as a second language contexts, a modicum of critical literacy research in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts in which English is seldom used outside the classroom environment has also been undertaken. This article aims to discuss the introduction of critical literacy in the Teaching English to Speakers of other Languages

Employing a conversational form, this article presents the views of three editors from established mainstream journals. They first discuss the rise of predatory publishing, then highlight the dangers of publishing in predatory journals, identifying some “red flags” that authors can look out for to avoid such journals. They then offer hints on how prospective authors can increase their chances of acceptance

In addition to movies, television programs, and TED Talks presentations, podcasts are an increasingly popular form of media that promotes authentic public discourse for diverse audiences, including university professors and students. However, English language teachers in the English as a second language/English as a foreign language contexts might wonder: “How do I know that my students can handle

This viewpoint essay considers the current status of computer-assisted pronunciation training (CAPT) before examining some of the current issues and future directions in the field. The underlying premise is the pedagogic potential of CAPT systems and resources for teaching and learning, and the need for greater synergy between technological design and functionality on the one hand, and pedagogic purpose

This article presents a case study that examined the principles and practices of one novice English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher at a prominent English language institution in Central America. This qualitative study sought to contribute to the discussion of the perceived interdependent influences of EFL teachers’ thoughts, identities, and behaviors through five stages of self-reflection in Farrell’s

Despite the accumulating body of knowledge on action research, the scope of research on teacher identity construction in action research is still limited. This study relied on the concept of identities-in-practice and examined four second language (L2) teachers’ identity construction across the plan, act, observe, and reflect stages of action research. Data were collected from semi-structured interviews

Despite a growing focus on positive psychology in recent years, negative emotions have not ceased to play a crucial role in learning additional languages in the classroom. This paper reports a study that investigated one such negative emotion – boredom – as experienced by 115 advanced learners of English. They were asked to write a descriptive paragraph about boredom that they experienced during English

The international role of English has made it the most taught foreign language in the world. As a result, standard native varieties have thrived as models within the field of English language teach...

There is a growing recognition of diverse settings and different varieties of English and accents. However, there seems to be a lack of research on the investments and views of Expanding Circle stu...

Contemporary society demands from individuals new and relevant literacies that go beyond the basics of reading and writing. Furthermore, texts now appear less confined to a single semiotic resource...

Very few studies have comprehensively mapped out the landscape of English language teaching (ELT) research, particularly those that are not accessible to wider international readership. Thus, this ...

Research has suggested that the type and frequency of learning strategies employed by successful listeners is greater than their less successful counterparts. Based on evidence that metacognitive s...

Events caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have required second language (L2) educators to move away from face-to-face (F2F) lessons and adopt online teaching. Educators have utilized a range of online...

Learner engagement is crucial for ensuring the quality of learning experiences, and yet the study of ‘task engagement’ has received relatively little empirical attention in the language education d...

This article explores the recent development of translanguaging from the perspective of multilingualism. This is in light of the multilingual turn in the field of foreign language teaching, particu...

Although L2 Motivational Self System has received extensive attention over the past decade or so, its relations with the Big Five Traits and their impact on effort expended towards L2 learning with...

Professor of Second Language Acquisition Robert DeKeyser is from the School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures at the University of Maryland, USA. His research builds bridges between the theory of second language acquisition with major concerns in cognitive aspects such as implicit and explicit learning mechanism, and age differences, and implications including grammatical development, instructed

The push for better English as a Foreign Language (EFL) pedagogy continues in Asia. In Japan, particularly, developing self-regulated learning (SRL) skills is a major objective in the new national ...

Online discussion forums are a popular learning tool commonly used in blended learning. Despite the widespread use of this tool, pre-service English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ conception...

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) is a dual-focussed approach that promotes the learning of curricular content in tandem with an additional language, usually English. Since its incept...

English is widely used as a global language. The traditional monolithic model of English has been challenged as the development of World Englishes (WE) and English as a lingua franca (ELF) paradigm...

Emotions are an important part of the experiences of both language teachers and language learners, however their role has often been marginalized as a result of the focus on cognitive rather than a...

This article provides an account of how presentation-practice-production (PPP) textbook lessons were turned into task-based lessons which were then implemented in three Grade 4 classrooms in primar...

This article considers the continuing debate in pronunciation instruction (PI) about whether segmental or suprasegmental features are more important in teaching English to speakers of other languag...

Engagement with feedback from supervisors is central to developing graduate students’ research and writing skills. Such engagement, however, is not the students’ sole responsibility because differe...

This article describes Schema Association Training (SAT), an enrichment programme designed to develop students’ confidence and ability to sustain discussions during speaking assessments. The author...

Book reviews appear in journals for language teachers, alongside research-based articles and state-of-the art reviews. Interestingly, however, although editorial guidelines are usually provided for...

Peer feedback or peer review has been promoted in the English writing classroom as an effective strategy to improve writing skills. With the popularity of adopting technology in learning, our resea...

This article reports the results of two experiments which compared the effects of reading-only, reading-while-listening, and reading with textual input enhancement (i.e. underlining) on Vietnamese ...

For most of its history, the field of teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) has focussed much of its attention on teaching methods and curricula to the exclusion of the person who must deliver them. In this article we propose that TESOL recognize the inner lives of teachers through understanding their spirituality from the perspective of the teacher’s personal and professional being

It is well documented that listening to large quantities of input can greatly facilitate foreign/ second language (L2) learning, and there are L2 learners who have reached high levels of proficiency through exposure to authentic aural input (Chang, 2016; Rost, 2005). The rise of digital technologies and the increased accessibility of the internet have made authentic resources easily available. However

In higher education, understanding discipline-specific vocabulary can be challenging. Insufficient vocabulary can be a major challenge for students as they begin their university studies. This stud...

This article discusses a framework developed by Dornyei, Henry and Muir (2016). Known as the Directed Motivational Currents (DMCs) framework, it takes a socio-dynamic viewpoint in which learner mot...

This study examined whether the reading passages in the new series of English-language textbooks for high-school students in Vietnam fostered reading comprehension and incidental vocabulary acquisi...

One of the consequences of the digital era has been the undeniable rise in the use of English in business. Studies have shown that large numbers of people in the business community now rely on English to get their work done, and at the same time, that many business transactions now take place through digital technologies in the form of computer mediated communication (CMC). In this study, we will be

Developments in digital communication technologies have had a significant effect on the way that people communicate, including how we gain access to, create and disseminate knowledge in academic and professional contexts. These developments have provoked interest from researchers investigating innovative digital genres and practices (e.g. Kuteeva and Mauranen, 2018; Luzón and Pérez-Llantada, 2019)

Students in academic contexts are expected to engage with large amounts of reading and they frequently meet unknown words and phrases in those reading materials. Previous research has shown that second and foreign language learners can acquire some of the unknown vocabulary that they encounter during reading. However, these previous findings were mainly based on scores in off-line, post-reading tests

Technology use in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) programmes is seen as a strategy to support pedagogical innovation and intensifying growth in post-secondary international student enrolments. This article discusses government-funded research documenting the largely undefined use of technologies in post-secondary North American EAP programmes. This study surveyed EAP teachers and administrators

Over the past decade, digital multimodal composing (DMMC) in the language learning context has received growing attention. DMMC entails teaching writing as the social practice of meaning making using various semiotic tools (Siegal, 2012). Despite its potential benefits as a way to teach a meaning-making process in the current digitalized era, much concern regarding a lack of language focus has been

The present study examined whether oral interactive (pair) rehearsals and individual rehearsals promote second language (L2) learners’ communication ability. The participants were 60 first-year stu...

With digital literacies becoming an essential competency for teachers across the world, recent educational policies in India emphasize teachers’ ability to use digital technologies for pedagogic purposes and the use of digital technologies by teachers as one of the evaluation criteria for ranking institutions. In the absence of any properly established policy on in-service training in digital technologies

Although the ELT (English Language Teaching) materials development literature points to the influence of classroom experience on materials design, the literature is less specific about how such exp...

This study examines how English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ motivational practice affects learners based on a motivational design for learning and performance, the Attention, Relevance, C...

Audiovisual platforms like YouTube facilitate the introduction of informal learning practices for their pedagogical exploitation both in class and online. One such practice is the creation of a BookTuber community for recommending books, thus making it possible for students to engage in an out-of-class community where common interests can be shared. In this innovations in practice article, we present

It is generally accepted that collocation is essential for establishing synonymy. They are related linguistic features which are important and useful for language learners. Given this importance, t...

A purpose-built online error detection tool was developed to provide genre-specific corpus-based feedback on errors occurring in draft research articles and graduation theses. The primary envisaged users were computer science majors studying at a public university in Japan. This article discusses the development and evaluation of this interactive, multimodal tool. An in-house learner corpus of graduation

Twitter has become a common feature of academic conferences, used by organizers to provide information about the conference and by attendees to engage in discussion about the conference topics, share information, and create social links and networks within the community. This study examines the tweets from two conferences in Applied Linguistics in order to analyse the networked language practices of

The use of digital technologies has transformed the processes of writing for academic journals and the dissemination and preservation of academic work. It has also made the measurement of the impact of publications in academic journals easier and this information more accessible to authors. In this article I discuss some of the ways in which digital technologies have changed writing for academic journals

If enhancing the connection between teaching and research has been highlighted in the general English language teaching profession, does English teaching at university – the ivory tower characteriz...

Helping second language (L2) learners to enhance their oral skills is vitally important, and pedagogical approaches are often seen as challenging when offering learners chances to successfully deve...