Greetings, ALIS Members!

It’s time for another issue of AL Forum. We’d like to start by welcoming two new members to the leadership team. Olga Griswold, who has graciously agreed to serve as our chair-elect, is actually returning to ALIS. From 2011 to 2014, she served as coeditor of this very newsletter. We are lucky to have her back. Please be sure to read Olga’s letter in this issue. And a big welcome to Natalia Dolgova, who joins the editing team. To the AL Forum, Natalia brings her passion for applied linguistics as well as a strong background in research and teaching. Her timing could not have been better, as Monika Ekiert steps down to pursue other duties and interests. Be sure to check out Monika’s goodbye piece in the current issue. We will miss Monika’s careful editing eye, her impeccable organizational skills, and—most of all—her sharp wit and warm sense of humor.

In the current issue, we present three brief articles, each holding a number of implications for the language classroom and for research on language learning. Hillary Gale and Julieta Fernandez consider the topic of taboo language and whether it should be taught in adult language classes. Their answer is a resolute yes. The authors make a strong case for why taboo language is a worthwhile subject for the ESL classroom. Ron Thomson describes a pronunciation training program that is available for free on the web. After explaining how the program works, he shares how the program has been utilized in recent research on phonemic discrimination and how it can complement classroom instruction. In the final article, Paula Winke and Susan Gass explore free recall as a way to assess learners’ reading and listening comprehension. After presenting how recall with idea-unit scoring has been utilized in various studies, the authors share issues that arose when they adopted the method for one of their own studies. They close by encouraging teachers to consider the use of idea-unit scoring to assess students’ comprehension.

For those of you who were able to attend the TESOL convention in Baltimore this past April, you surely noticed a wide variety of interesting presentations within the applied linguistics strand. We expect the same to be true this coming March at the next TESOL convention, in Seattle. Please see the letter from our Chair, David Olsher, for updates on our interest section as well as information on two noteworthy InterSection panels he is organizing in collaboration with other interest sections for the 2017 convention.

We hope you enjoy the issue!