Volume 11 (2020) Issue 1, pp. 7-8
Editorial
With this issue, the Journal of Linguistics and Language Teaching commences its second decade. While I looked back when writing my Editorial for the previous issue, I would now like to look ahead by making an announcement and by taking into consideration some aspects that might be of importance in the years to come.
On the occasion of JLLT’s first ten years, some members of the Editorial Advisory Board were so nice as to contribute an article each for an Anniversary Issue. This first special issue of JLLT ever will be published in the course of this year, complement the biennial rhythm and focus on some general topics the Journal stands for, both in terms of linguistics and in that of language teaching.
Imagining what we might be in need of in the realm of (theoretical and applied) linguistics and foreign language methodology in the future, I would like to hint to some developments which I personally think might be desirable for the years to come both in terms of the sciences involved and foreign language practice.
As I have stressed several times in the past few years, in addition to the dominance of English, which will doubtlessly continue in the upcoming decade (and which I do not take as a negative development at all), it will be necessary to boost the learning of other foreign languages much more intensively than has been the case in the past twenty or thirty years, and to show potential learners, ranging from pupils via university students to linguists and language methodologists (who should also remain constant learners so as to never forget practically what they advocate theoretically), that the world of languages is really large and that a huge number of foreign languages are there to be learnt and acquired so as to be mastered one day. Why should Germanists (and English is a Germanic language) not learn another Germanic language in order to get to know the mechanisms of their mother tongue or first foreign language even better, by having it mirrored by another language of the same family? Why should a Romanist, to add another example, not learn a Germanic of Slavic language so as to get to know those structures and ways of thinking which are inexistent or of little importance in her mother tongue or first foreign language? Why should both not learn a language which is far away from their own linguistic world, like Chinese, Russian or Arabic? And why should they, with regards to these languages, not research on them, on potential learning outcomes and promising learning strategies?
Another point, which is closely linked to this one, is the question of why it should not become more prevalent to publish articles in the respective target language and not only on it? Such a development, which is practised in some academic communities, but by far not in all of them, would represent a new trend, and it would lead to far more publications in French, Spanish, and German, for example. Publishing papers on any language predominantly in English is not negative by definition, but it is not the last word of wisdom, either. Opening ourselves up to getting in touch with even more foreign languages and publishing in them more frequently would thus be a very nice development.
In terms of language methodology, a new trend, which has started but by far not reached its peak, is to learn languages via applications (apps). This trend will surely continue and be researched on intensively. What may be of equal importance, will be to include such app (and, in general independent) learning in the foreign language classroom and to understand that these apps (and learners’ personal methods) are not „competitors“ to the language teacher, that they are not obstacles to learning, but that they constitute an enrichment which foreign language researchers and teachers can make good use of so as to refine their methods.
Another important development, which has been on for about four months in a worldwide perspective, is virtual teaching. As a matter of fact, this mode of teaching had not been unknown before, but no one would have thought that it would become as prevalent as it is today, had there not been the coronavirus. Such a virus does represent a danger and does not have anything positive in it for mankind, but it has forced all of us to make an evolutionary step within three months which would otherwise have taken ten years at least. Of course, this new development does not only affect the teaching of languages, but it affects language teaching in particular because language teachers rely even more on interaction than (m)any others. Teaching students who we have never met in person, building rapport with them without using gestures or if so, only minimally, and still transferring what would traditionally have been done in the physical foreign language classroom, to the online world has represented challenges, which at first seemed impossible to overcome. Indeed, many of our contributors and readers certainly have “survived” in this situation, and more than one will have found that this new world of teaching may not be the best, but that it is definitely not the worst one either. Surely, this new world of teaching represents a new research field in which sharing experiences about informed teaching by practitioners may be of the same importance for the virtual world of teaching as are the empirical findings made by researchers. In this vein, all those who have relevant ideas to share are welcome to do so.
Especially in view of the change of the world which has come about in the past few months, we all do not know what the world will be like by the end of this decade. What we do know, however, is that it will continue turning, and what we also know is that Man lives on the reflections he makes on the world he lives in. As far as this world concerns (foreign) languages, one place to share ideas is JLLT. Therefore, I would like to encourage all (potential) authors who have already done so, those who are presently thinking about it and all those who have oftentimes thought about it but have never got started, to submit their papers to JLLT. JLLT will, in turn, continue to be there for its contributors and readers and be a (more and more) important linking element between languages, language (learning) theory and language teaching and acquisition. Thinking about all the future perspectives, which go far beyond what has been outlined here, I myself am looking forward to JLLT’s second decade.
Thomas Tinnefeld
JLLT
Editor