Dear Readers,

Welcome to AL Forum, newsletter for the Applied Linguistics Interest Section!

For the current issue, we invited the authors of four upcoming sessions at TESOL 2018 to share their fascinating work with the AL Forum readership. First, Scott Thornbury presents a thought-provoking discussion regarding the role of grammar in syllabus and curriculum design. In the second article, Darren LaScotte and Elaine Tarone explore the role of constructed dialogue as a dimension of interlanguage competence, proposing new research directions. In the third article, Charlotte Nolen and YouJin Kim report results of the study that explored effects of using pedagogical tasks (as defined by tenets of task-based language teaching) for teaching and learning of vocabulary. Finally, Wei Zhang presents an illustration of how elements of text structure (as defined by the paradigm of Systemic Functional Linguistics) can be effectively taught to English learners in K-12 contexts. These articles highlight elements of applied linguistic research that have direct pedagogical implications and that can be useful to learners across many instructional contexts.

In other content, the letter from our Chair, Olga Griswold, gives us a heads up on what we can expect from the ALIS strand at TESOL 2018. She also fills us in on our Interest Section’s transition plans under TESOL’s restructuring efforts. Finally, one of us offers a brief farewell, as he steps away from AL Forum.

We hope you enjoy the issue and look forward to seeing many of you in Chicago this month!

Best,

Ben & Natalia