This contribution outlines the current research on many of the positive benefits of cross-border education as well as some of what we know about student experiences. The authors also highlight some of the limitations of the study-abroad research to date (too White, too American, too European), and suggest that it is time to consider different sorts of “international” experiences; these potentially include crossing into local multilingual and multicultural communities as well as examining a fuller range of experiences for members of diaspora communities. By challenging common ideologies about international education, they suggest that it might be pedagogically better, more practical, and more ethical to find local international sites for all, and for future educators in particular.

The field of language teaching and learning is in dire need of replications of vocabulary and comprehension research with diverse populations of learners. We propose for replication one large-scale vocabulary intervention carried out successfully in a middle-school with monolingual and multilingual students. This study was carried out several years ago, was published in the Reading Research Quarterly, and has been generously cited since then. The findings and the instruments from this study have been leveraged in subsequent extension studies by the same group of researchers, but have not been replicated in different contexts. We offer multiple reasons and methods of replicating this study in high school and adult contexts in which there is a serious need for learners to comprehend technical or academic materials using deep, nuanced foundations of vocabulary.

For some, research in learning and teaching of a second language (L2) runs the risk of disintegrating into irreconcilable approaches to L2 learning and use. On the one side, we find researchers investigating linguistic-cognitive issues, often using quantitative research methods including inferential statistics; on the other side, we find researchers working on the basis of sociocultural or sociocognitive views, often using qualitative research methods including case studies and ethnography. Is there a gap in research in L2 learning and teaching? The present article developed from an invited colloquium at the 2013 meeting of the American Association for Applied Linguistics in Dallas, Texas. It comprises nine single-authored pieces, with an introduction and a conclusion by the coeditors. Our overarching goals are (a) to raise awareness of the limitations of addressing only the cognitive or only the social in research on L2 learning and teaching and (b) to explore ways of bridging and/or productively appreciating the cognitive-social gap in research. Collectively, the nine contributions advance the possibility that the approaches are not irreconcilable and that, in fact, cognitive researchers and social researchers will benefit by acknowledging insights and methods from one another.

Some second language (L2) learners are unique in that they bring low print literacy and limited formal schooling to the language learning enterprise. A range of personal, economic, historical, and political circumstances bring them to highly literate, industrialized societies where print literacy becomes not only desirable but necessary to earn a living and participate in a range of everyday activities. This article is a review of current research related to this population of learners for the purpose of informing educators about their particular teaching and learning needs. While the emphasis is on scholarship focused on adult L2 emergent readers, attention is also given to related research with bi- and multilingual children and monolingual adults who are not print literate. Finally, sociopolitical and historical issues are touched upon with regard to broader policy matters that may have contributed to or perpetuate low print literacy.

In this chapter we describe a body of research on oral language processing that we believe has important implications for applied linguistics. This research documents the effects of literacy on human oral language processing. Studies in this area show that illiterate adults significantly differ from literate adults in their performance of oral processing tasks that require an awareness of linguistic segments. These studies provide evidence that the acquisition of the ability to decode an alphabetic script changes the way in which the individual processes oral language in certain kinds of cognitive tasks. At the same time, based on research establishing a clear reciprocal relationship between oral language processing skills and literacy, researchers on first language acquisition are extending the scope of their study to explore the way in which an individual's language competence is altered and extended by literacy itself. In this discussion, we describe the broad outlines of this new body of research and scholarship, and explore the implications for our understanding of second-language acquisition, and particularly for theories and research that explore the impact of “noticing” on SLA. We conclude by stressing the social and theoretical importance of including clearly-identified illiterate adults in our growing database on second language acquisition research.

This study addresses one of the functions of output proposed by Swain (1993, 1995, 1998). In particular, the activity of producing the target language may, under certain circumstances, prompt L2 learners to recognize some of their linguistic problems and bring to their attention something they need to discover about their L2. Two research questions were posed: (a) Does output promote noticing of linguistic form? and (b) Does output result in improved performance on the target form? In treatment phase 1, participants reconstructed a short passage after being exposed to it, followed by a second exposure to the same input material and a second reconstruction opportunity. In phase 2, participants wrote on given topics, followed by the presentation of a model written by a native speaker. Participants wrote a second time on the same topic. To test the noticing function of output, participants underlined parts of the sentences they thought were “particularly necessary” for subsequent (re)production. The control group was exposed to the same input materials but was not required to produce any output. Although phase 1 tasks resulted in noticing and immediate incorporation of the target form, the posttest performance failed to reveal their effects. In contrast, phase 2 tasks resulted in improvement on posttest 2. The results are discussed in terms of the efficacy of output in promoting noticing and learning and the conditions that may be required for output to be useful for SLA.