Standards-based reforms in many Anglophone nations have been informed by "monoglossic language ideologies" that marginalize the dynamic bilingualism of emergent bilinguals. Recent developments in applied linguistics that advocate for "heteroglossic language ideologies" offer an alternative for standards-based reform. This…

This article addresses theoretical and empirical issues relevant for the development and evaluation of language learning progressions. The authors explore how learning progressions aligned with new content standards can form a central basis of efforts to describe the English language needed in school contexts for learning, instruction, and…

This article presents an Australian perspective on the issue of standards-based education and the place of students of English as an additional language (EAL) who are working within mainstream schools. Beginning with an overview of the various standards documents that impact the lives of teachers and their students in mainstream Australian…

In the United States, new common state standards in English language arts and disciplinary literacy require K-12 students to "read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently." Issues of text complexity have spurred debates in the mainstream literacy, educational practice, and policy…

Subject-area standards such as Common Core State Standards for Language Arts and Mathematics and Next Generation Science Standards offer deeper, richer views of subject-area proficiency. In science, they underscore doing things with facts and concepts, such as explaining, planning, and investigating--activities that are intertwined with language,…

This symposium article, to which three authors contribute distinct parts, presents the rationale for standards-based language assessment and examines both the uses and misuses of language assessments in English-speaking countries that are engaged in standards-based education reform. Specifically, they focus on the assessment of emergent bilinguals…

In this essay, the author argues that English language learners (ELLs) can meet and exceed the Common Core State Standards, and that more complex materials are in fact precisely what they need. Lack of access to such materials is what prevents ELLs from attaining full proficiency in English.

This study examined test-takers' motivation, test anxiety, and test performance across a range of social and educational contexts in three high-stakes language tests: the Canadian Academic English Language (CAEL) Assessment in Canada, the College English Test (CET) in the People's Republic of China, and the General English Proficiency…

This study aims to investigate the effect of experience abroad and second language proficiency on foreign language classroom anxiety. Particularly, this study is an attempt to fill the gap in the literature about the affective outcomes after experiences abroad through the anxiety profiles of Korean learners of English as a foreign language (EFL)…

In this article, the authors argue that at the center of every English language learning moment lies desire: desire for the language; for the identities that English represents; for capital, power, and images that are associated with English; for what is believed to lie beyond the doors that English unlocks. However, despite its centrality within…

The importance of statistical knowledge in applied linguistics and second language acquisition (SLA) research has been emphasized in recent publications. However, the last investigation of the statistical literacy of applied linguists occurred more than 25 years ago (Lazaraton, Riggenbach, & Ediger, 1987). The current study undertook a partial…

Autonomous learning and effective self-regulatory strategies are increasingly important in foreign language learning; without these, students might not be able to exploit learning opportunities outside language classrooms. This study investigated the influence of motivational factors and self-regulatory strategies on autonomous learning behavior.…

This multiple case study examines patterns in the oral second language use of three Spanish-speaking English language learners in rehearsed presentations produced annually over 4 years (Grades 9-12) in a U.S. high school. Analysis focuses on students' changing use of transitional devices called frame markers (Hyland, 2005) as a lens for…

As a result of recent developments in digital technologies, new genres as well as new contexts for communication are emerging. In view of these developments, this article argues that the scope of English language teaching be expanded beyond the traditional focus on speech and writing to the production of multimodal ensembles, drawing on a range of…

Guided by positioning theory and poststructural views of second language learning, the two descriptive case studies presented in this article explored the links between social positioning and the language learning experiences of two talkative students in an academic ESL classroom. Focusing on the macro- and micro-level contexts of communication,…