This article starts from a comment on my locus of enunciation (i.e., the context from which I?speak), a key element of decoloniality as a means of resisting the idea of disembodied knowledge or neutrality promoted by modernity/coloniality. I?then proceed to explain how I?understand the entanglement of modernity and coloniality and why we need to…

While learning and teaching English as an additional language are lifelong learning processes for both learners and teachers, these two sectors are largely dominated by West-centric linguistic and cultural imperialism, epistemic hegemony, racism, and neoliberalism, which are tied to colonialism and imperialism. In light of this issue, I argue that…

In this contribution, I argue for a radical reappraisal of accepted ideas about how English is taught and tested. I am not alone in questioning the validity of the current orthodoxy. Others have expressed views that correspond or are consistent with the points I make here. What I have sought to do is to synthesize them in the formulation of a…

It is sometimes claimed that teaching grammar is elitist. This article contends that in actual fact, far from being elitist, grammar is a vital ingredient in the English language teaching mix. Since the Chomskyan revolution in linguistics there has been a school of thought in the English speaking world that the formal teaching of grammar is…

In this response to commentators, I agree with those who suggested that the distinction between exemplar- and abstraction-based accounts is something of a false dichotomy and therefore move to an abstractions-made-of-exemplars account under which (a) we store all the exemplars that we hear (subject to attention, decay, interference, etc.) but (b)…

This article reflects on the epistemological steamrolling that the 2021 Ofsted Curriculum Research Review (OCRR) accomplishes: in part, by the positioning of the problem and solution through highly selective cherry-picking (omitting key causal factors); in part, through the discursive move of acknowledging complexity before offering simple and…

Ambridge argues persuasively for the importance in language learning of a rich database of input exemplars. However, a fuller account must also consider the importance of on-line and developmental competition between rote exemplar-based storage and emergent patterns that can optimize retrieval. [For Ben Ambridge's "Against Stored…

Westergaard (2021) presents an updated account of the Linguistic Proximity Model and the micro-cue approach to the parser as an acquisition device. The property-by-property view of transfer inherent in this approach contrasts with other influential models that assume that third language (L3) acquisition involves the creation of a full copy of only…

This response argues against the proposal that novel utterances are formed by analogy with stored exemplars that are close in meaning. Strings of words that are similar in meaning or even identical can behave very differently once inserted into different syntactic environments. Furthermore, phrases with similar meanings but different underlying…

The sheer scale of the IELTS [International English Language Testing System] testing infrastructure and its unique position in the world of international education dictated some of the particular challenges that the IELTS Partners (British Council, IDP Education and Cambridge Assessment English) faced after the closure of test centres during the…

Ambridge's proposal cannot account for the most basic observations about phonological patterns in human languages. Outside of the earliest stages of phonological production by toddlers, the phonological systems of speakers/learners exhibit internal behaviours that point to the representation and processing of inter-related units ranging in size…

This commentary critiques Ambridge's radical exemplar model of language acquisition using research from the Longitudinal Study of Early Language, which has tracked the language development of 30+ children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) since 2002. This research has demonstrated that the children's capacity for abstraction at the grammatical…

Ambridge argues that the existence of exemplar models for individual phenomena (words, inflection rules, etc.) suggests the feasibility of a unified, exemplars-everywhere model that eschews abstraction. The argument would be strengthened by a description of such a model. However, none is provided. I show that any attempt to do so would immediately…

Historically and as a developing country, the Sultanate of Oman has always been culturally dependent on Britain to plan and implement its English Language Teaching (ELT) and in-service teacher education. This dependency has negatively affected preparing English language teachers with a new global professional identity capable of introducing change…

During language acquisition children generalise at multiple layers of granularity. Ambridge argues that abstraction-based accounts suffer from lumping (over-general abstractions) or splitting (over-precise abstractions). Ambridge argues that the only way to overcome this conundrum is in a purely exemplar/analogy-based system in which…