7 November 2025, Osnabrück, Germany
Foreign language teaching and reference works play a crucial role in institutionalised foreign language teaching and are known to constitute an important source of learners’ foreign language (e.g., Huang 2019). However, multiple studies suggest that the language of these textbooks often differs considerably from the kind of language typically used in communicative situations outside the foreign language classroom (e.g., Barbieri and Eckhardt 2007; Gilmore 2004; Le Foll 2022; Römer 2004; Rössler 2010; Winter and Le Foll 2022). The language of textbooks may even be considered a distinct language variety (Le Foll 2024a, 2024b). Reference works traditionally used in foreign language teaching have also been shown to under- or misrepresent various lexico-grammatical features, as seen in comparisons with recent corpus-based reference works (e.g., Fankhauser 2024; Siepmann and Bürgel 2021). This symposium is intended to provide an opportunity to present and discuss new descriptive, comparative, and evaluative studies on the language of foreign language teaching materials. We look forward to empirical examinations of textbooks, language learning apps, and other (digital) teaching materials, as well as of reference works designed for foreign language teaching, e.g., learner dictionaries and (learner) pedagogical grammars. The symposium will also allow us to discuss key concepts such as authenticity, pedagogical norms, and the relationship between teaching materials and syllabi in foreign language teaching.