The present systematic review examines Glenn Fulcher's contributions, works, philosophy, and research in language testing and assessment. The data includes his published articles, book chapters, books and interviews (except the one in this special issue) relevant to language testing and assessment from 1987 to March 2022. This study is conducted…

This paper reviews how the construct of oral fluency in a second language (L2) has been defined and researched over the last twenty-five years. The emerging picture is somewhat kaleidoscopic, as domains of cognitive, social, individual and linguistic influences on L2 speech have been opened up for study. L2 fluency research presents a wealth of…

This special issue contains reports of research on a variety of variables that are hypothesized to have an impact on how practice affects language learning. This includes spacing of practice opportunities, the provision of feedback, training working memory, and oral versus written input. Each study is complex and clearly contextualized within the…

When an endangered or minority language is spoken by children and taught in schools, both oral and literacy skills are crucial for continued language maintenance. In school settings, literacy skills are often prioritised to support the transition to second language literacy, and rich oral language development is overlooked. This paper presents a…

A "heritage language" is defined as a minority language that differs from the dominant language used in a particular community. Codas (children of Deaf adults) who sign but may be dominant in the spoken language of their community present an interesting case due to the added difference of a spoken/signed modality in their linguistic…

In mid-2012, the authors organized a two-week workshop in Papua New Guinea to provide training in basic techniques and technologies for language documentation, and to gain understanding of how these technologies might be improved in the future. An assessment of the workshop was conducted by Brooks with the central idea that the workshop's…

In vocabulary research there has been a shift from focusing on single words to considering multiword sequences, such as collocations. Despite the general consensus among language researchers that collocation is essential to effective language use in real-world communication, particularly oral communication, language-testing researchers have made…

The theme of this volume, complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) as dimensions of second language production, proficiency and development, represents a thriving area of research that addresses two general questions that are at the heart of many studies in second language acquisition and applied linguistics: What makes a second language (L2)…

This article examines the relationship between spoken language research and ELT practice over the last 20 years. The first part is retrospective. It seeks first to capture the general tenor of recent spoken research findings through illustrative examples. The article then considers the sociocultural issues that arose when the relevance of these…

Recent years have brought increasing attention to studies of language acquisition in a country where the language is spoken, as opposed to formal language study in classrooms. Research on language learners in immersion contexts is important, as the question of whether study abroad is valuable is still somewhat controversial among researchers…

Discusses a theory that quotations are demonstrations that are component parts of language use. Demonstrations are described as unlike descriptions in two main ways: they are serious rather than nonserious, and they depict rather than describe their referents. (69 references) (JL)

Much of the research that contributes to understanding how bilingual children become literate is not able to isolate the contribution of bilingualism to the discussion of literacy acquisition for these children. This article begins by identifying three areas of research that are relevant to examining literacy acquisition in bilinguals, explaining…

A major preoccupation in assessment is connecting examinees' performance in assessment and nonassessment contexts. This preoccupation has traditionally been framed in terms of generalizability. This article reconceptualizes this problem from a qualitatively different perspective on human abilities and their development, namely, the Sociocultural…

Rate-controlled recorded text can be used not only to facilitate listening comprehension through reducing speech rate, but it can also help language learners become accustomed to increasingly rapid deliveries. First- and second-language research on temporal variables relevant to facilitating listening comprehension is described, and practical…

Attempts to give a clearer picture of discourse analysis and the assumptions behind it, focusing on its use in the domain of schizophrenic speech, to provide a better indication of both the promise and the procedures of a discourse-analytic approach to the speech productions of psychiatric populations. (Author/CB)