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The aim of this review is to provide a critical analysis of language teacher research engagement. The term ‘research engagement’ here covers both engagement in teacher research (i.e. by doing it) as well as engagement with research (i.e. by reading and using it). Research engagement is commonly recommended to language teachers as a potentially productive form of professional development and a source of improved professional practice; empirical accounts of teachers’ practices and experiences in doing teacher research and reading research, and of the benefits that accrue to them from such activities are, however, limited and diffuse. This review examines the available evidence on research engagement in language teaching and discusses this in relation to the educational literature more broadly. The analysis presented here highlights both the benefits and the challenges that are associated with teacher research engagement, and sheds light on why teacher research remains largely a minority activity in the field of language teaching. It also illustrates the complex relationship between research knowledge and what teachers do, and considers the implications of this relationship for the contribution that reading research can make to teachers’ professional activities. The paper concludes by outlining a number of conditions which facilitate teachers’ attempts to engage both in and with research. An awareness of these conditions is fundamental to the success of initiatives which aim to promote language teacher research engagement.

IATEFL is the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (www.iatefl.org). This report outlines research papers which have appeared in recent IATEFL publications. Four publications are discussed in turn. Three of these were published by the IATEFL Research Special Interest Group (SIG), while the fourth was published by the Young Learners SIG. The range of research reported here reflects the international nature of IATEFL's activities and its commitment to supporting and promoting research within the association. The publications reviewed are available for purchase from IATEFL.

This paper reviews a selection of research from the field of foreign and second language teaching into what is referred to here as teacher cognition – what teachers think, know, and believe and the relationships of these mental constructs to what teachers do in the language teaching classroom. Within a framework suggested by more general mainstream educational research on teacher cognition, language teacher cognition is here discussed with reference to three main themes: (1) cognition and prior language learning experience, (2) cognition and teacher education, and (3) cognition and classroom practice. In addition, the findings of studies into two specific curricular areas in language teaching which have been examined by teacher cognition – grammar teaching and literacy – are discussed. This review indicates that, while the study of teacher cognition has established itself on the research agenda in the field of language teaching and provided valuable insight into the mental lives of language teachers, a clear sense of unity is lacking in the work and there are several major issues in language teaching which have yet to be explored from the perspective of teacher cognition.