The advent of the concept of communicative competence in English Language Teaching (ELT) over thirty years ago signalled a shift from grammar‐based pedagogy to Communicative Language Teaching. It was generally accepted that, in addition to grammar rules, language teaching needed to take account of social context and social rules of use. The concept of communicative competence, initially developed for ethnographic research, appeared to offer an intellectual basis for pedagogic broadening. The transfer of this concept from research to language teaching has, however, produced abstracted contexts and idealized social rules of use based on (English language) native‐speakerness. Drawing on recent work in the fields of World Englishes, English as a lingua franca and Second Language Acquisition, this article argues that it is imperative for ELT to take notice of real‐world social, cultural and language developments in contemporary conditions and to re‐engage with a set of reformulated ethnographic sensitivities and sensibilities.

Teacher-based assessment (TBA) is increasingly being promoted in educational policies internationally, with English language teachers being called on to plan and/or implement appropriate assessment procedures to monitor and evaluate student progress in their own classrooms. However, there has been a lack of theorization of TBA in the English language teaching fi eld, with researchers pointing to much variability, a lack of systematic principles and procedures, and a reliance on traditional, but now outdated, psychometric assumptions. This article provides an overview of some of the current issues in TBA, including its defi nition and key characteristics, and the complex but signifi cant questions which its implementation pose for our understandings of language, learning, and assessment.

Compared with steroid injection, open carpal tunnel release resulted in better symptomatic and neurophysiologic outcome but not grip strength in patients with idiopathic carpal tunnel syndrome over a 20-week period.