How to Study

Read. Read the chapter in the free textbook on Zenodo. Use the five topics below to focus your reading.

Watch. Watch the matching chapter lesson.

Listen. Listen to the matching broadcast to revisit the main ideas.

Your summary. Write a short summary in your own words. Return to the textbook to check unclear points.

Explore the 15 Chapters

Choose a chapter below. Each section includes a short overview, five topics, a video lesson, and an audio broadcast.

Chapter 1: The Nature and Scope of Applied Linguistics

Textbook pp. 15–27

Overview — simplified study support

Explore how applied linguistics investigates language questions in everyday life. Use a university notice to distinguish evidence from explanations and compare practical responses with the people affected.

Watch Chapter 1

Listen to Chapter 1

Five core topics

1.1 What Makes a Problem an Applied Linguistics Problem?

In plain English: Identify the language concern, the people involved, and the conditions that affect understanding and access.

1.2 From “Linguistics Applied” to Applied Linguistics

In plain English: Compare applying language knowledge with starting from a practical problem that may need knowledge from several fields.

1.3 An Interdisciplinary Field

In plain English: Connect language knowledge with other expertise and the experiences of people affected by a decision.

1.4 From Language Problems to Informed Responses

In plain English: Define a concern, examine evidence, compare responses, try one, and review what happens.

1.5 Mapping the Field

In plain English: See how learning, teaching, communication, technology, policy, and fairness connect across the book.

Chapter 2: Second and Additional Language Acquisition

Textbook pp. 28–40

Overview — simplified study support

Examine learner language as a developing system. Compare how experience, interaction, attention, prior languages, age, and learning settings may shape development while keeping claims within the evidence.

Watch Chapter 2

Listen to Chapter 2

Five core topics

2.1 Learner Language as a Developing System

In plain English: Look for patterns across learner samples before deciding what they mean or what caused them.

2.2 Cross-Linguistic Influence

In plain English: Consider how a known language may help or influence another language, while checking other explanations.

2.3 Input, Interaction, Output, and Attention

In plain English: Explore how language experience, exchanges, production, and attention can create learning opportunities.

2.4 Major Perspectives on Additional-Language Development

In plain English: Compare theories that emphasize mental processes, repeated use, practice, social support, or change over time.

2.5 Development Across Ages and Settings

In plain English: Compare learning across ages and settings while considering exposure, task demands, and opportunities.

Chapter 3: The Language Learner: Individual Differences, Motivation, and Emotion

Textbook pp. 41–53

Overview — simplified study support

Investigate why learners experience the same course differently. Consider thinking, goals, emotions, identity, and access without assigning fixed learner labels, and build a small plan for regulating your own learning.

Watch Chapter 3

Listen to Chapter 3

Five core topics

3.1 Language Aptitude and Cognitive Resources

In plain English: Distinguish learning potential from achievement and consider attention, memory, and task demands.

3.2 Motivation and Goals

In plain English: Connect reasons for learning and future goals with manageable actions in the present.

3.3 Emotion and Language Learning

In plain English: Consider how anxiety, enjoyment, and readiness to communicate can change with the situation.

3.4 Beliefs, Strategies, and Self-Regulation

In plain English: Choose a goal, act, check understanding, and adjust the plan; seek support when it helps.

3.5 Identity, Agency, and Context

In plain English: Examine how relationships, choices, power, and opportunities affect participation.

Chapter 4: Bilingualism, Multilingualism, and Translanguaging

Textbook pp. 54–66

Overview — simplified study support

Describe how people use languages for different activities and relationships. Compare multilingual perspectives and education models, then examine language maintenance and change without expecting equal or perfect ability in every language.

Watch Chapter 4

Listen to Chapter 4

Five core topics

4.1 Understanding Bilingualism and Multilingualism

In plain English: Describe language knowledge and use across activities without requiring equal ability in each language.

4.2 Multilingual Repertoires and Language Interaction

In plain English: Distinguish alternating languages, adopting words, and using a coordinated multilingual repertoire.

4.3 Multilingualism, Identity, and Participation

In plain English: Examine how language choices affect relationships, roles, and opportunities to participate.

4.4 Bilingual and Multilingual Education

In plain English: Compare program goals, language use, support, and opportunities for continuing language development.

4.5 Heritage Languages, Family Language Practices, and Attrition

In plain English: Explore how family and community opportunities shape language use, transmission, and accessibility over time.

Chapter 5: Language Teaching and Pedagogy

Textbook pp. 67–79

Overview — simplified study support

Connect knowledge about language learning with teaching decisions. Compare communicative activities and tasks, examine form-focused support and feedback, and justify choices using learner needs, evidence, and classroom conditions.

Watch Chapter 5

Listen to Chapter 5

Five core topics

5.1 From Methods to Principled Teaching

In plain English: Distinguish broad teaching views, organized methods, and classroom actions, then ask what purpose each serves.

5.2 Communicative Language Teaching

In plain English: Design activities with a reason to understand and express meaning, with suitable language support.

5.3 Task-Based Language Teaching

In plain English: Examine tasks that focus on meaning and lead to an outcome beyond producing a selected form.

5.4 Attention to Language Form and Feedback

In plain English: Choose attention to language and feedback that fit the immediate learning purpose.

5.5 Teachers, Context, and Postmethod Pedagogy

In plain English: Use professional judgment, local evidence, and reflection to make teaching decisions for the actual setting.

Chapter 6: Curriculum, Needs Analysis, Materials, and Specific-Purpose Education

Textbook pp. 80–93

Overview — simplified study support

A course should connect what learners need to do with its lessons, materials, and assessment. This chapter uses a laboratory English course to examine how evidence can guide those choices.

Watch Chapter 6

Listen to Chapter 6

Five core topics

6.1 Curriculum, Syllabus, and Learning Outcomes

In plain English: Connect the wider education plan, course content, and what students should be able to do.

6.2 Needs Analysis

In plain English: Gather evidence about required communication, current abilities, and learner priorities.

6.3 Syllabus Design

In plain English: Compare ways to select and order language, tasks, and subject content.

6.4 Language Materials

In plain English: Check whether resources fit the learners, purpose, access needs, and reuse conditions.

6.5 Language for Specific and Academic Purposes

In plain English: Examine communication needs in university study and work, including subject teaching through English.

Chapter 7: Language Assessment and Evaluation

Textbook pp. 94–107

Overview — simplified study support

Two students can receive the same score from tests that measure different abilities. This chapter helps you examine what assessment results can support and how feedback can guide learning.

Watch Chapter 7

Listen to Chapter 7

Five core topics

7.1 Why Do We Assess?

In plain English: Connect each assessment purpose with the evidence needed for its decision.

7.2 What Is Being Measured?

In plain English: Check the intended ability, score interpretation, consistency, and fairness.

7.3 Assessment Tasks

In plain English: Compare task types and use clear criteria to interpret a performance.

7.4 Classroom Assessment

In plain English: Use assessment evidence and feedback to choose a useful next step in learning.

7.5 Assessment Consequences and New Technologies

In plain English: Examine how tests affect teaching and what evidence new scoring tools need.

Chapter 8: Discourse, Pragmatics, Genre, and Interaction

Textbook pp. 108–120

Overview — simplified study support

A clear sentence can carry different meanings for different people. This chapter examines a student email and other exchanges to show how context, relationships, and the purpose of communication shape understanding.

Watch Chapter 8

Listen to Chapter 8

Five core topics

8.1 Applied Discourse Analysis

In plain English: Examine how whole texts and exchanges make sense in their setting.

8.2 Conversation and Classroom Interaction

In plain English: Study how people take turns, respond, and solve problems in understanding.

8.3 Second-Language Pragmatics

In plain English: Connect language choices with meanings, relationships, and expectations.

8.4 Genre and Discourse Communities

In plain English: Identify what parts of a text do for a shared communication purpose.

8.5 Applying Discourse Knowledge

In plain English: Use analysis to improve learning materials, academic texts, and service communication.

Chapter 9: Language, Society, Identity, Global Englishes, and Intercultural Communication

Textbook pp. 121–133

Overview — simplified study support

A comment about someone’s accent is different from a request to explain an unclear term. This chapter examines language variation, identity, and international communication so that real communication needs can be addressed without stereotypes.

Watch Chapter 9

Listen to Chapter 9

Five core topics

9.1 Variation in Applied Contexts

In plain English: Separate differences in language from social judgments about its users.

9.2 Language and Identity

In plain English: Examine how participation and access to opportunities shape identity.

9.3 World Englishes

In plain English: Study English varieties and their histories while recognizing the limits of broad categories.

9.4 English as an International Language and Lingua Franca

In plain English: Explore how people with different language backgrounds build shared understanding.

9.5 Intercultural Communication and Language Socialization

In plain English: Examine local expectations and participation without treating national groups as all the same.

Chapter 10: Corpus Linguistics, Lexicography, and Data-Driven Learning

Textbook pp. 134–148

Overview — simplified study support

A larger word count does not always mean that an expression is used more often. This chapter shows how to compare language collections, read examples in context, and use corpus and dictionary evidence for learning.

Watch Chapter 10

Listen to Chapter 10

Five core topics

10.1 What Is a Corpus?

In plain English: Check how a language collection was selected and whether it fits the question.

10.2 Reading Corpus Evidence

In plain English: Compare rates, examine examples in context, and check how uses are distributed.

10.3 Learner Corpora

In plain English: Study learner language while considering differences in tasks and participants.

10.4 Lexicography and Dictionaries

In plain English: Use dictionary information about meaning, grammar, and examples with care.

10.5 Data-Driven Language Learning

In plain English: Investigate examples, test a possible pattern, and use it in a new context.

Chapter 11: Literacy, Multiliteracies, and Language Skills Development

Textbook pp. 149–162

Overview — simplified study support

Reading words aloud is different from understanding an argument. This chapter explores how people use reading, writing, speaking, listening, and different forms of communication to make meaning.

Watch Chapter 11

Listen to Chapter 11

Five core topics

11.1 Literacy and Literacies

In plain English: Understand how people use written language for thinking and participation in different settings.

11.2 Reading in an Additional Language

In plain English: Choose reading actions that fit your purpose and check your interpretation against the text.

11.3 Writing in an Additional Language

In plain English: Plan, draft, and revise writing for a particular audience and purpose.

11.4 Listening, Speaking, and Pronunciation

In plain English: Connect listening, speaking, and pronunciation with understanding and interaction.

11.5 Multiliteracies and Multimodality

In plain English: Examine how words, images, sound, and layout work together and support access.

Chapter 12: Technology, Digital Communication, and Artificial Intelligence in Language Education

Textbook pp. 163–175

Overview — simplified study support

A fluent automated revision can change the meaning of a writer’s evidence. This chapter helps you connect digital tools with learning goals and evaluate their output, access, and limits.

Watch Chapter 12

Listen to Chapter 12

Five core topics

12.1 From CALL to Mobile and Ubiquitous Learning

In plain English: Connect computers and mobile devices with useful learning actions in real study conditions.

12.2 Computer-Mediated and Online Communication

In plain English: Compare live interaction with communication that allows replies at different times.

12.3 Informal Digital Language Learning

In plain English: Turn everyday digital interests into focused opportunities to notice and use language.

12.4 Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI

In plain English: Examine AI uses and check fluent output for errors or unsupported claims.

12.5 Evaluating Digital Tools

In plain English: Judge a tool through learning purpose, access, accuracy, privacy, and human review.

Chapter 13: Language Policy, Planning, Rights, and Language-in-Education

Textbook pp. 176–188

Overview — simplified study support

A website can offer two language buttons while leaving important services in one language. This chapter examines how language decisions become everyday practice and what people need to participate.

Watch Chapter 13

Listen to Chapter 13

Five core topics

13.1 Understanding Language Policy and Planning

In plain English: Compare stated decisions about language with everyday expectations and use.

13.2 Types of Language Planning

In plain English: Distinguish planning for recognition, language resources, learning, and social value.

13.3 Language-in-Education Policy

In plain English: Examine teaching languages alongside teachers, materials, assessment, and learner support.

13.4 Policy in Families, Institutions, and Public Spaces

In plain English: Explore how language decisions develop at home, in institutions, and in public signs.

13.5 Language Rights, Maintenance, and Revitalization

In plain English: Connect continued language use with access, community decisions, and opportunities to learn.

Chapter 14: Applied Linguistics in Professional and Public Life

Textbook pp. 189–201

Overview — simplified study support

A translated welcome sign may help visitors find a service while forms and spoken exchanges remain difficult to access. This chapter examines communication across professional and public settings, with careful attention to evidence and responsibility.

Watch Chapter 14

Listen to Chapter 14

Five core topics

14.1 Translation, Interpreting, and Language Access

In plain English: Distinguish written translation from spoken or signed interpreting and examine the whole service.

14.2 Forensic Linguistics and Language and the Law

In plain English: Examine language evidence in legal settings while keeping conclusions within its limits.

14.3 Clinical Linguistics and Health Communication

In plain English: Consider communication difficulties through appropriate professional and multilingual assessment.

14.4 Workplace and Professional Communication

In plain English: Connect workplace language with real tasks, roles, and linked records or messages.

14.5 Media and Public Communication

In plain English: Make verified public information understandable and usable without changing its facts.

Chapter 15: Critical Applied Linguistics: Language, Power, Equity, and Social Justice

Textbook pp. 202–215

Overview — simplified study support

A support program may require the skill that its learners need help to develop. This chapter examines how language rules affect opportunity and how evidence, participation, and reflection can guide fair responses.

Watch Chapter 15

Listen to Chapter 15

Five core topics

15.1 What Makes Applied Linguistics “Critical”?

In plain English: Question familiar assumptions and examine how language practices connect with power and change.

15.2 Language, Standards, and Inequality

In plain English: Compare language requirements with their purposes and with fair opportunities to show ability.

15.3 Language and Social Difference

In plain English: Examine social differences without assuming that a group label explains every person’s experience.

15.4 Critical Discourse, Literacy, and Pedagogy

In plain English: Study representation and participation while separating visible patterns from unverified intentions.

15.5 Decolonization, Social Justice, and Responsible Action

In plain English: Consider whose knowledge counts and design responses with affected people and clear limits.

About this textbook

Foundations of Applied Linguistics: For EFL University Students
First Edition | Version 1
Project Director: Prof. Munassir Alhamami
Professor of Applied Linguistics, King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia

Suggested Citation
Alhamami, M. (2026). Foundations of applied linguistics: For EFL university students (1st ed., Version 1). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22863430

© Munassir Alhamami
Except where otherwise stated, the original content is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Material credited to other sources remains subject to the terms stated for that material.
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license

Chapter titles and topic headings retain the textbook’s wording. Overviews and plain-English explanations are separate study support.

Developed with assistance from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and NotebookLM. The Project Director is responsible for the final editorial decisions and released version.

Contact: munassir7@gmail.com
University contact: mhamame@kku.edu.sa

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