Agendas for Language Learning Research

Currents in Language Learning provides programmatic state-of-the-art overviews of current issues in the language sciences and their applications in first, second, and bi/multilingual language acquisition in naturalistic and tutored contexts.

• Draws on interdisciplinary perspectives from linguistics, psychology, education, anthropology, sociology, cognitive science, and neuroscience
• Brings together a team of leading linguists to explore current issues
• Develops research agendas in areas including: progress and relevance in second language acquisition; usage-based linguistics; age effects in language learning; second language pragmatics; vocabulary knowledge; transfer of learning in second language instruction; language, literacy, and culture; academic language development in schools; practice theory; and evolutionary perspectives on language

Lourdes Ortega is Professor in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University. She investigates additional language development in instructed contexts from cognitive-interactionist and usage based perspectives and has long-standing interests in second language writing, foreign language education, and research methods. She serves as Journal Editor of Language Learning.

Alister Cumming is Professor and Head of the Centre for Educational Research on Languages and Literacies at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.  His research and teaching focus on writing in second languages, language assessment, language program evaluation and policies, and research methods. He serves as Executive Director of Language Learning.

Nick C. Ellis is Professor of Psychology, Professor of Linguistics, and Research Scientist in the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan. His research interests include language acquisition, cognition, emergentism, corpus linguistics, cognitive linguistics, applied linguistics, and psycholinguistics He serves a General Editor of Language Learning.