Innovation in Language Teaching and Learning

The study of innovation in language education began to generate particular interest only from the 1980s onwards, with important early contributions including Kennedy (1988) from a UK perspective and Henrichsen (1989) from a US one. The former was signifi cant in establishing the management of educational change as an emerging subdiscipline of applied linguistics. Before that time, the complexities and challenges of introducing educational change were often underestimated or insuffi ciently problematized. In recent decades, interest in the topic of innovation has grown substantially, particularly in general education in the work of scholars such as Michael Fullan (e.g., Fullan, 2001) and Andy Hargreaves (e.g., Hargreaves, 2003), and also in language education, as evidenced by recent books: Murray (2008), Alderson (2009), and Wedell (2009). For the purposes of this entry, I defi ne innovation as an attempt to bring about educa-tional improvement by doing something which is perceived by implementers as new or different. I use it interchangeably with the term “change. ” Examples of innovation in language education over the past few decades include new pedagogic approaches, such as task-based language teaching; changes to teaching materials; technological developments