This paper brings together the research and developments of instructed pragmatics over the past three decades by reporting the synthesis findings of instructional intervention studies in interlanguage pragmatics. Two questions have guided this investigation: (1) is instruction effective in learning pragmatics?; and (2) what methods are most effective in learning pragmatics? Exhaustive electronic bibliographical searches yielded a body of 58 instructional intervention studies for the review. Findings across these studies are compared and explored for common patterns and inconsistencies that emerge among them. The paper concludes with implications for future research based on the survey of the existing practice.

The paper reports a study of a narrative-based Dynamic Assessment (DA) procedure developed in the USA that is used in the UK with children with developmental language disabilities. Three monolingual English children with language disabilities are assessed by a speech/language pathologist/therapist who is learning to work with DA in collaboration with the researcher in the study. Quantitative evidence of language structures indicates that the children learn to talk more after two intervention sessions. Evidence from the mediations of the children's language learning capabilities throws diagnostic light on the nature of their needs. A critique is offered of the assessment tool, and conclusions are drawn about the implications of DA for differentiating language-learning potential in language disabilities, with suggestions for further study.

There has been considerable debate about the relevance and applicability of SLA theory and research for L2 pedagogy. There are those who maintain that SLA must be applicable to L2 pedagogy: a view based on the argument that because SLA is a subfield of applied linguistics, it should have direct relevance to L2 teaching. Others take the view that not all areas of SLA research need to be relevant to L2 pedagogy – only the more ‘applied’ areas. While I would agree that much of the work in SLA should be applicable to L2 pedagogy, particularly research on instructed SLA, my presentation takes a different perspective on the SLA/L2 pedagogy interface. It focuses on misapplications of SLA theory and research to L2 pedagogy. I argue that the applicability of SLA research for L2 instruction requires a careful consideration of context and that specific SLA constructs – even those considered to be important within instructed SLA – may not have direct relevance to L2 pedagogy. Three areas of SLA research that I will discuss with respect to misapplication and relevance are: the role of instruction in SLA, the role of age in SLA, and the nature of and distinction between implicit and explicit L2 knowledge.

In this plenary speech I examine multilingual interaction in a number of European regions in which minority languages are being revitalized. Education is a crucial variable, but the wider society is equally significant. The context of revitalization is no longer bilingual but increasingly multilingual. I draw on the results of a long-running project on the ‘Added value of multilingualism and diversity in educational contexts’ among secondary school students, and show that there are interesting differences and similarities between the minority language (Basque or Frisian), the majority language (Spanish or Dutch) and English. The focus on multilingualism is applied inside and outside the school. The discussion demonstrates the complexity of everyday multilingual practices and the outcomes have implications for the gap between education and society and for further research into the linkages between language proficiency and actual language practices.

This plenary paper showcases current corpus-based research on written academic English, illustrating the tight links that exist between corpus research and pedagogic applications. I first explicate Sinclair's concept of the ‘lexical approach’, which underpins much corpus research and pedagogy. I then discuss studies which focus on individual lexical items, phraseology (including lexical bundles) and rhetorical functions. Finally, I examine studies that combine Swalesian move structure analysis with corpus analysis. Throughout the paper, I highlight the importance attached to lexis in both corpus research and pedagogic applications of corpus findings in the realm of written discourse in English for Academic Purposes (EAP), covering both general and more specific purposes.

There is no doubt that attention and (un)awareness in second/foreign language (L2 learning) are two constructs that have permeated, explicitly or implicitly, second language acquisition (SLA) studies since their inception. Indeed, we have witnessed several empirical studies attempting to probe more deeply into the roles of these two constructs in the L2 learning process. Given the challenging methodological issue of eliciting and interpreting data on such internal processes, this paper underscores the importance and benefits of conducting replications of studies investigating both the roles of attention and awareness, or lack thereof, in the L2 learning process. A report on two key SLA studies is provided and several suggestions for replication are made for each study together with their accompanying potential benefits.

This article examines the role of cultural awareness (CA) and intercultural awareness (ICA) in classroom theory and practice. CA and ICA can be roughly characterised as an awareness of the role of culture in communication with CA focused on national cultures and ICA on more dynamic and flexible relationships between languages and cultures. There will be a consideration of findings from CA and ICA research that have not been well applied, those that have been well applied and those that have been over-applied to classrooms. In particular, it will be argued that CA and ICA are more prevalent in pedagogic theory, and to a lesser extent policy, than they are in practice. While the cultural dimension to language learning is now fairly mainstream, where elements of CA and ICA are applied or translated into the classroom they typically take the form of comparisons between national cultures, often in essentialist forms. There is still little evidence of classroom practice that relates to the fluid ways cultures and languages are related in intercultural communication, especially for English as a lingua franca or other languages used on a global scale.

This seminar took place on 19 April, 2013 at the Centre for Language and Communication, Faculty of Language and Education Studies, The Open University. The seminar was coordinated by Janet Maybin and Theresa Lillis and there were 28 participants, including four postgraduate students, from universities in Britain, Belgium and South Africa.

The seminar took place on 11 and 12 June 2013 at the MOSAIC Centre for Research on Multilingualism, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham.

Corpus linguistics has transformed the landscape of empirical research on languages in recent decades. The proliferation of corpus technology has enabled researchers worldwide to conduct research in their own geographical locations with few hindrances. It has become increasingly commonplace for researchers to compile their own corpora for specific research questions or to conduct research on the basis of corpora constructed by other researchers. Moreover, corpus linguistics has become accessible to language teachers, providing ideas, instructions and new opportunities to apply corpus techniques, corpus-based materials and activities in their classrooms (e.g., Bennett 2010; Reppen 2010; Scheffler 2011).