In this article, we introduce a template of methodological considerations, termed "the dynamic ensemble," for scholars doing or evaluating empirical second language development (SLD) research within a complexity/dynamic systems theory (CDST) framework. Given that CDST principles have yielded significant insight into SLD and have become…

Language program evaluation is a pragmatic mode of inquiry that illuminates the complex nature of language-related interventions of various kinds, the factors that foster or constrain them, and the consequences that ensue. Program evaluation enables a variety of evidence-based decisions and actions, from designing programs and implementing…

Information gap tasks have played a key role in applied linguistics (Pica, 2005). For example, extensive research has been conducted using information gap tasks to elicit second language data. Yet, despite their prominent role in research and pedagogy, there is still much to be investigated with regard to what information gap tasks offer research…

In this contribution, some of the basic characteristics of complex adaptive systems, collectively labeled Dynamic Systems Theory (DST), are discussed. Such systems are self-organizing, dependent on initial conditions, sometimes chaotic, and they show emergent properties. The focus in DST is on development over time. Language is seen as a dynamic…

Argues that applied linguistics, as the interdisciplinary field that mediates between the theory and practice of language acquisition and use, is the overarching field that includes second language acquisition (SLA) and SLA-related domains of research. (Author/VWL)

This is the eighteenth in a series of catalogues of documents in the ERIC system that are of interest to teachers and researchers in foreign languages and linguistics. The documents cited in the present list appeared in the monthly ERIC abstract journal "Resources in Education" (RIE) from July through December 1976. The list is compiled from all…