Editor’s Message

Abstract

The field of world language education has shown up and put into action what those of us in the field have always known-educators and researchers are capable of amazing things, even under the most challenging conditions From this perspective, we implemented two activities-an immediate special issue on remote/online teaching and learning, specifically focused on world language education in the COVID-19 Era and the Review for Relief initiative The issue includes: * an empirical look at the effectiveness of app-based language instruction (Isbell, Loewen, and Sporn);* a set of framing metaphors for using social media in world language teaching and learning (Reinhardt);* a framework for scaffolding tasks and strategic instruction based on cognitive load (Payne);* a discussion of the use if interactive games for learning language and culture when working at a distance (Dubreil);* a set of research-based sample tasks for collaboration and interaction in online environments (González-Lloret);* an exploration of critical pedagogy for teaching deaf culture and the implications for this approach (Reagan, Matlins, and Pielick);* methods for cultivating coherence and sustainability in online teacher professional development (Paesani);* ways to establish professional communities for world language educators in online environments (Knight);* research-based approaches for creating and sustaining virtual language communities (Lomika Anderson);* approaches for task engagement in digital spaces (Egbert);* a look at the value of human collaboration (Gullien, Sawin, and Avineri);* ideas for the use of digital story telling and fan fiction analysis in the world language classroom (Suaro, Cornillie, and Bündgens-Kosten);* research-based resources about language learner anxiety in online Spaces (Russel);* a model for the remote teaching and learning of L2 pragmatics (Taguchi);* resources for using corpora in world language classrooms (Vyatkina);and * specific narratives of programmatic responses with syntheses of lessons learned moving forward (Ross and DiSalvo;Gacs, Goertler, and Spasova)