Second Language Acquisition and Language Education – Bridging the Interface

Dear Colleagues,

Emerging in the 1970s, second language acquisition (SLA) research is now a long-established field, illuminating the complexity of the language learning process among learners in different learning contexts, of different age groups, and at different developmental stages of proficiency from diverse perspectives. Reflecting its status as an independent field of inquiry within Applied Linguistics and drawing on a range cognate fields reflecting its significant interdisciplinary underpinnings, from linguistics to psychology and sociology, the field offers a diverse range of potential insights for language education practitioners. The latter naturally includes language instructors but also extends to other relevant stakeholders such as language education policy makers, those involved in language testing, and learners themselves and their parents. While language acquisition and language education are often confounded by non-specialists as one and the same area, the specificity of their focus is altogether different. Notwithstanding, there is a natural interface between an acquisition approach and an education focus to learning a second language. That interface extends beyond instructed second language acquisition (ISLA) as a significant sub-field within SLA, where there is a strong focus on classroom input exposure conditions in diverse forms (see, for example, Housen and Pierrard 2005).

This Special Issue seeks to include but also critically to go beyond ISLA in itself to consider the interface between SLA and language education as a means of exploring the range of insights that SLA can provide on the learning process of direct relevance to language practitioners and other stakeholders. The presentation showcases the scope for SLA and language education practitioners and stakeholders to engage in a way that does not happen very often as the two fields, SLA and language education, are often seen to co-exist as independent fields, with little attention paid to how each can inform the other in a mutually beneficial dialogue. Notable exceptions are volumes by Trévisiol-Okamura and Komur-Thilloy (2011) and Watorek et al. (2021).

Against this background, article submissions with an explicit focus on the interface between SLA and language education as a means of illuminating the insights that SLA can provide on language education practices are invited. Submissions should genuinely be situated within an SLA framework while providing a clear outline of how the acquisition insights can inform and shape educational practices. A key question underlying each article should thus be how SLA empirical results can be used by practitioners and learners in a meaningful way to enhance learner development and outcomes and pedagogical practices. Given the scope and breath of SLA research, it is hoped that the collection of articles will exemplify the rich diversity of areas that SLA research casts its lamp on within its multidimensional prism in their entirety, from the nature of linguistic development to input and interaction matters, along with individual differences and the wide range of personal, social, and environmental factors that underpin such individual variability. Such areas complement the more explicit focus on ISLA matters, where article submissions are also welcome.

Submissions can take the form of articles based on empirical studies but may also include opinion, viewpoint, and commentary pieces, which should offer an extensive treatment of and reflection on the theme from a specific thematic angle. It is intended that the Special Issue reflect a range of languages, among learners in different learning and educational contexts, and at different proficiency levels while also drawing on empirical studies from a range of theoretical paradigms, approaches, and methods.

References

Housen, A. & M. Pierrard (eds.) (2005). Investigations in instructed second language acquisition. Berlin / New York, Mouton deGruyter [Studies on Language Acquisition 25]

Trévisiol-Okamura, P. & G. Komur-Thilloy (eds.) (2011). Discours, acquisition et didactique des langues. Les termes d’un dialogue. Paris: Orizons.

Watorek, M., R. Rast & A. Arslangul (eds.) Premières étapes dans l’acquisition des langues étrangères: Dialogue entre acquisition et didactique des langues. Paris: Presses de l’INACLO

Dr. Martin Howard
Guest Editor

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