A second emphasis that has taken hold in discussions among applied linguists themselves is the role for critical studies; this term covers critical awareness, critical discourse analysis, critical pedagogy, student rights, critical assessment practices, and ethics in language assessment (and language teaching; Davies, 1999; Fairclough, 1995a; McNamara, 1998; McNamara and Roever, 2006; Pennycook, 2001; van Lier, 1997).

First, under the umbrella of applied linguistics, research in language teaching, language learning, and teacher education is now placing considerable emphasis on notions of language awareness, attention and learning, “focus on forms” for language learning, learning from dialogic interactions, patterns of teacher-student interaction, task-based learning, content-based learning, and teacher as researcher through action research.