Notes From the Editor: Celebrating 100 Years of The Modern Language Journal

Foreign Language Educators’ Exposure to Research: Reported Experiences, Exposure Via Citations, and a Proposal for Action

“…Our studies have provided sobering evidence in support of “the troubling conclusion” that ISLA academic journals “no longer serve in a directly visible fashion the enormously complex set of issues pertaining to [school] language education” (Byrnes, , p. 7, emphasis added). However, by examining data on practitioner exposure to research and by tracking a less ‘visible’ flow of research via referencing practices, we have also provided some evidence that there is not an entirely “ exclusionary relationship between research of the kind now privileged in journals like the MLJ and the reality of language teaching and learning” (Byrnes, , p. 8, emphasis added). We hope that our study engenders further investigations to make research–practice interfaces more visible, with a view to improving them.…”

“…One potential explanation for the low proportion of references to SSCI ISLA journals could be their oft discussed ‘lack of connection with the classroom’ (Byrnes, , pp. 7–8).…”

“…However, adopting different views about research–practice relations would not, we think, greatly alter the implications of our findings. For example, whether we adopt a spiralling outwards/‘implications and applications’ view of research to pedagogy, or a case‐study approach whereby socioeducational contextual factors are critical to interpretation of the study, or an awareness‐raising/reflective‐practitioner model, or a co‐constructed approach in which practitioner involvement is fully embedded throughout (Byrnes, ; Ellis & Shintani, ; Lantolf & Poehner, ; Long, ; Norris & Manchón, ), our data indicate that these models would be similarly ill‐served by the current flow of published academic research. Our point is more general: If any potential pedagogical relevance is claimed (by authors or editorial mission statements), the research could better find its way into practitioners’ communities of practice, for evaluation by them.…”

“…However, disparities between the pursuits and priorities of researchers and practitioners and a lack of interface between ISLA research and practice are frequently observed (Byrnes, ; Long, ). In some ways, publishing in academic journals serves only the academic community: For example, journal impact factors are academic performance indicators, displayed on journal homepages and used in university promotion systems.…”

“…However, we have very little concrete data about the actual impact of this “often‐times noxious research versus teaching dichotomy” (Byrnes, , p. 7). A crucial question, rarely empirically investigated yet tightly related to understanding and improving research–practice relations, is the extent to which academic research finds (or has the potential to find) its way into the hands and minds of practitioners.…”