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Understanding language teachers' mental lives (Walberg, 1972), and how these shape and are shaped by the activity of language teaching in diverse sociocultural contexts, has been at the forefront of the subdiscipline of applied linguistics that has become known as language teacher cognition. Although the collective research efforts within this domain have contributed critical insights into what language teachers know, believe, and think in relation to their work (cf. Borg, 2006), limited progress has been achieved in addressing some of the most pertinent questions asked by applied linguists, policy makers, and the general public alike: How do language teachers create meaningful learning environments for their students? How can teacher education and continuing professional development facilitate such learning in language teachers? By revisiting the domain's epistemological, conceptual, and ethical foundations, this special issue sets an agenda for reinvigorated inquiry into language teacher cognition that aims to redraw its current boundaries and thus reclaim its relevance to the wider domain of applied linguistics and to the real-world concerns of language teachers, language teacher educators, and language learners around the world.

This article takes a broadly sociocultural perspective on the development of an Armenian English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher. It focuses on how experiences and actions outside the professional development classroom influence language teacher agency. The paper is framed within activity theory and specifically draws on Galperin's orienting activity, the psychological process of regulating internalization, which may occur through an image that guides actions. Data from email interviews, oral interviews, and classroom observations are iteratively analyzed to show how the participant oriented to her actions through a specific image. This image was based on the participant's early experiences with her English teacher as a school pupil, and it mediated her developing sense of agency by guiding the way she engaged in individual actions as a language teaching student, English teacher, and teacher trainer. The participant appeared to be leading emerging activity in her local teaching situation, but social activity provided the requisite background to her individual actions. The article concludes by suggesting that individual agentive actions can contribute to local social activity, that professional development occurs over a life, and that case studies may contribute to professional development not only as a model of personal reflection but also as a professional call to action.

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) has strong links to practical activities in the real world, and TBLT theory and research contributes to pedagogical practice. The relationship between theory and practice is primarily one way, according to Bygate (2016), who argues that TBLT theory is tested in practice more often than practice is shaped by TBLT theory. It is a different matter, however, if one focuses on TBLT research conducted in sociocultural theory, which addresses the relationship between theory and practice through praxis, the idea that theory guides practice and practice shapes theory. In this article, Feryok focuses on how sociocultural theory, contributes to TBLT through praxis.

In order to understand teacher cognition—the thoughts, beliefs, and knowledge of language teachers—it is helpful to understand why people commit to language teaching in the first place. However, few studies of language teachers have directly examined the nature and development of commitment in language teachers, across their language learning, teacher education, and teaching experience within their context. This study aims to do just that. Four primary school teachers in South Korea participated—two experienced teachers and two novice teachers—who at the time of the study were teaching English as a foreign language. Data from reflective writing, interviews, and classroom observations from a wider 18-month study on language teacher cognition and development were iteratively analyzed for the aims of this study. The findings show that commitment transfers between language learning and teaching through both positive and negative experiences, involves multiple and evolving intentions and mindsets in language teaching, and occurs in action in particular contexts. The findings also show that the teachers' early commitment to language learning contributed to their commitment to act on improving their English proficiency and classroom practices through professional development. The study concludes with implications and research suggestions.

Intercultural language teaching and learning has increasingly been adopted in state school systems, yet studies have shown that language teachers struggle to include it in their practice. The aim of this study is to use dynamic systems theory to examine how a German as a foreign language teacher in a New Zealand secondary school adopted a project designed to promote intercultural communicative language teaching. It does this with data from a microgenetic analysis of a session in which the teacher was introduced to the project and a qualitatively analyzed interview in which the teacher reported her beliefs and practices for teaching culture. The findings show that the teacher adopted the project by conceptualizing it through the practical challenges involved in using it as a formal assessment. In an interview, she expressed her beliefs about culture in language teaching, and there was some evidence that they reflected the process of adopting the project to be an assessment. The implications focus on the project as a basis for further development of intercultural teaching.

This article uses activity theory to consider how teacher learning and development occurs. It aims to show that imitation and orienting activity, both of which make use of the analysis of actions into means and goals, can help explain how a group of Malaysian mathematics and science teachers learned to use the language-teaching practice of tasks for English medium content teaching. It focuses on four Malaysian mathematics and science teachers who participated in a teacher-development programme by comparing their peer microteaching lessons on weeks 2/3 and 10 of the programme. The findings show that the teachers learned to use tasks by being able to successfully imitate some task criteria before others, with the crucial criterion of a `gap' being particularly difficult to imitate. This suggests they were orienting to tasks through incomplete images, possibly because of their prior experiences as content teachers. Role reversal helped clarify their images of tasks, enabling faithful transmission to occur. This study concludes by suggesting that imitation and transmission are important to teacher development, and that further research using Galperin's orienting activity is called for.

Personal experience shapes language teacher development, but how should it be researched? One idea is using Vygotsky's psychological construct of perezhivanie: what people experience of the world and how they experience it. Vasilyuk developed a psychoanalytic method based on people's life worlds, formed from their perezhivanie, which mediate their experiencing of crises. There are only a few published research studies that use perezhivanie in second language learning and teaching, none using Vasilyuk. I use experiencing to show that teacher development occurred in a novice teacher when, years later, she understood how she had overcome the contradiction of teaching when she was not a teacher. KEYWORDS Language teacher development, sociocultural theory, perezhivanie, experiencing

Personal experience shapes language teacher development, but how should it be researched? One idea is using Vygotsky's psychological construct of perezhivanie: what people experience of the world and how they experience it. Vasilyuk developed a psychoanalytic method based on people's life worlds, formed from their perezhivanie, which mediate their experiencing of crises. There are only a few published research studies that use perezhivanie in second language learning and teaching, none using Vasilyuk. I use experiencing to show that teacher development occurred in a novice teacher when, years later, she understood how she had overcome the contradiction of teaching when she was not a teacher.

Numerous studies have reported that extensive reading (ER) has a positive influence on affect. Recent studies suggest that motivation for ER changes. This is in line with recent developments in second language (L2) motivation research that have highlighted the complex and dynamic nature of L2 motivation. This study presents a model of complex and dynamic motivation for ER. This qualitative study examined 9 Japanese as a foreign language learners’ motivation for ER. The participants were encouraged to read as many Japanese books as possible outside class for 5 to 7 months. Data from interviews and journal entries were analyzed for factors influencing their motivation. The participants’ motivation changed as different factors interacted, leading to different patterns of engagement with ER, which fit within the model. This suggests the value of using a complex and dynamic approach to L2 extensive reading motivation. Implications concern the importance of varied materials and of making ER obligatory.