Introduction to the special issue: Action research in English language and communication contexts in higher education

In this special issue (SI) we aim not only to foreground a range of theoretical perspectives that have gained currency in the fields of English for Academic and English for Special Purposes (EAP/ESP), but to go further by interrogating how they might be implemented in classroom practice. These explorations are done from the perspectives of practitioners who have carried out action research, an approach to enquiry that is also gaining currency because of its application to practice. In so doing, one of our major aims in putting together this special issue was to contribute towards uniting, or at least bringing closer together, the interests of scholarly researchers and practitioners in the field of EAP/ESP, particularly those concerned about ways to bridge the perceived notorious gap between theory and practice/researchers and teachers – an increasingly prominent theme in the literature. Within this collection, readers will find papers that integrate theoretical concepts, including translanguaging, genre-based pedagogy, Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), intertextuality and plagiarism, peer and teacher feedback, English as Medium of Instruction (EMI), teacher learning and expertise, and student capacity building and development with investigations of how these theories can be tested out in practical teaching contexts.