Aptitude-treatment interaction (ATI) research is of both theoretical and practical interest to second language (L2) learning, since it provides insights into the processes linking learner-internal individual difference factors and learner-external contextual variables including instructional approach--variables that jointly determine L2 outcomes.…

This complex article has six subsections. Following a brief introduction, one team of three co-authors and three single authors present compact statements of their distinctive individual research perspectives on second language acquisition and teaching (SLA/T): Atkinson, Mejía-Laguna, and Ribeiro offer a sociocognitive perspective; Cappellini…

As part of a larger project investigating language awareness in plurilingual settings across educational levels through a multiple case study, this article zooms in on students' language awareness as it unfolds in a classroom in a Danish upper secondary school, in the context of a compulsory, plurilingual general language awareness course.…

Flow is an intrinsic motivational state associated with full task engagement, positive affect, and enhanced performance. While research has examined how different language tasks interact with flow experiences, no study has examined learner flow experiences in a wide range of tasks using an experience sampling method to determine how universal…

Empirical work exploring additional language (L+) learning emotions has both proliferated and expanded its focus over the past 15 years. The current article explores one possibility for responding to the challenge of capturing and describing emotions in order to furnish a more contextualized, multidimensional picture of emotions in L+ learning:…

With a forward-looking and problem-solving mindset, this article aims to combine theoretical knowledge and empirical evidence from different schools of thought in the field of second language (L2) learning and teaching--namely, instructed second language acquisition, generative linguistics, and an ecological perspective that includes multiple…

As emotions research in the field of second language acquisition continues to evolve, it is equally important to explore the impact of social--emotional variables that are specifically relevant to heritage language (HL) contexts. Anchoring on foundations in critical heritage language education (HLE), this study examines the discomforts of the HL…

This article adopts learning-behavior tracking as a research methodology within conversation analysis for second language acquisition to investigate its applicability to track and document how learning opportunities through collaborative repair work are brought about and whether they lead to second language (L2) word learning. To this end, the…

The purpose of this article is to examine the ethical tensions and considerations that arise in the world language classroom from using pedagogies of discomfort. Although pedagogies of discomfort have mostly been seen through a positive lens in the literature for engaging students with difficult issues in the classroom, there are ethical concerns,…

In order to conceptualize materials used in pair-work activities from a sociomaterialist perspective, this study examined the moment-by-moment unfolding of 67 pair-work interactions in beginner-level Japanese-as-a-foreign-language classrooms. The types of pair-work materials used in the focal classrooms--either textbook or teacher-designed…

This systematic review synthesizes the literature (involving 62 empirical studies) regarding the effectiveness of cognitive linguistics-inspired language pedagogies (CL-ILPs) on second language (L2) learning. It begins with an overview of the main theoretical tenets of cognitive linguistics followed by a description of the data selection, coding,…

Although English and German are both Germanic languages, due to various historical changes, many of their cognates are no longer easily recognizable. This study examined whether knowledge of language history can be beneficial to learners when learning English-German cognates. Thirty-five English-speaking second language (L2) learners of…

The rationale behind this special issue is to underscore the importance of studying instructional materials in context--that is, how materials and textbooks are used by teachers and learners. Research on teaching materials needs to reach beyond traditional 'armchair' analyses and evaluations to appreciate the place of instructional materials in…

Willingness to communicate (WTC) is an important individual learner difference that can help account for varying rates of language-learning success across individuals. As learner talk is considered to be a key pedagogical activity, instructors and researchers often strive to identify and manipulate key variables that will increase and arouse a…

In commercial materials for the teaching of second language (L2) pronunciation, common bottom-up approaches segment phonology into a series of discrete and decontextualized linguistic components with rules that students are encouraged to internalize. Such approaches seem out of step with recent second language acquisition (SLA) theory and research…