Our call for replication research papers has aroused much interest in the applied linguistics and second language acquisition community. In addition to the ongoing call for papers, included in this issue is an article in which members of the journal's Review Panel answer questions on the nature, application and significance of replicating studies in our field.
The author of this issue's state-of-the-art article, Ulrike Jessner, provides an overview of international research on third language learning and teaching. Her description and discussion of the research deal with sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic and educational aspects of multilingual teaching, and the author emphasises current research trends in this fairly young area of language teaching. She suggests that more fundamental work on multilingual education has yet to be undertaken, presenting challenges for researchers, educators and politicians involved in language planning. The article is accompanied by an extended book review, in which Gessica De Angelis discusses in detail important recent publications on the subject.
Poland is the focus for the next in our series of survey articles looking at language teaching and learning research in specific countries. Unlike in other countries, where language didactics is a sub-domain of applied linguistics, in Poland glottodidactics has developed as an autonomous empirical science since the late 1960s. After discussing the history and the current socio-political situation of language teaching in Poland, Teresa Siek-Piskozub, Aleksandra Wach and Anna Raulinajtys present the findings of classroom studies, which provide an insight into the ways of teaching most commonly found in the contemporary Polish classroom.
It would be fair to say that two of the currently most influential movements in the attempt to set standards for foreign language education are the Common European Framework of Reference in Europe and the National Standards for Foreign Language Education in the United States, the latter representing an unprecedented consensus among educators, business leaders, government, and the community on the definition and role of foreign language instruction in US education. Recent issues of LT have included a number of key papers on the CEFR (see David Little's review in LT 39.3 (2006) and the plenary paper in LT 40. 3 (2007) by Fred Davidson and Glenn Fulcher). Throughout this year we will be including papers from the University of Wisconsin–Madison Language Institute and the Berkeley Language Centre which address the National Standards document. We hope that debate can be promoted through reflection on these keynotes this year, beginning with papers by June Phillips and Heidi Byrnes in the present issue of the journal.
Adrian Holliday argues that standards of English for ELT education need to consider political as well as linguistic factors. After addressing the concept of ‘native-speakerism’, he argues that any definition of English standards must acknowledge an alternative established belief that all users of English can claim ownership of the language. Taking the politics of speakerhood and English as a lingua franca into account, any suggestions about language standards need to be convincingly de-Centred, and must allow those who consider themselves Periphery to take Centre-stage.
In the Research in Progress section, Ernesto Macaro presents the activities of the Applied Linguistics Group at the University of Oxford.
