Preface This journal came out for the first time in 2015. Its foundation was built upon our belief that although Poland has a strong presence among second lan- guage acquisition and multilinguality researchers, which is demonstrated by the large number of conferences and also book publications appearing every year, academic journals like this one, concerned with both theoretical issues and the practical concerns of SLA, are not that numerous. The initial success of the journal is demonstrated by the fact that despite its short life, it is already indexed in several databases, and it made its first appearance in Scopus in 2018. Thanks to this, it is also recognised by the Polish Ministry of Higher Education as a scholarly journal in linguistics. It is of importance that the Theory and Practice of Second Language Acquisition journal is published by the prestigious Polish academic publisher, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego (University of Silesia Press). We should also ascribe the origins of our journal to the suc- cess of the International Conference on Foreign/Second Language Acquisition (ICFSLA), an academic event that has been organized for over thirty years by the Institute of English at the University of Silesia in Katowice (Institute of Linguistics since 2020). ICFSLA brings together many Polish and foreign aca- demics regularly every May. Its focus is on new trends in SLA research, but it also prides itself on promoting fairly unresearched and new issues in SLA. Although the conference always has a leading theme, scholars are also invited to present their research even if it falls outside the scope of the main topic. Our journal has become an accepted channel for the publication of selected conference papers of high academic standard. At the same time, we warmly welcome other contributions, those not connected with the conference itself. We also accept for inclusion in each volume reviews of academic books recently published in Poland and abroad, which would be of interest to our readers. It is additionally an important vehicle for promoting SLA research carried out by Polish academics and published by Polish publishers, who maintain high Theory and Practice of Second Language Acquisition vol. 6 (2), 2020, pp. 5–8 https://doi.org/10.31261/TAPSLA.9903 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en 6 Preface academic standards, but who are not that easily accessible abroad and so not tending to reach a wider academic audience. The whole process of paper sub- mission is automated via an Open Journal System (OJS) and this embraces the article submission, referee assignment, and double blind-review processes as well as the revision, copyediting, and production stages. The production proc- ess is in the hands of a team of experienced professionals from the University of Silesia Press, who do their best to make the whole procedure smooth and effective. All the issues of our journal are available free via the OJS system for reading and PDF download. The open access policy allows for the availability of the most recent research in the field at zero cost, thus promoting the articles published in its issues to global readerships. We strongly believe that our journal serves an important need in dissemi- nating new and interesting research projects and studies in SLA of both Polish and foreign scholars in the field. We have noted a palpable increase in sub- missions from all over the world, which is reflected in the contribution to the most recent volumes. The journal is published bi-annually and the contributions can be uploaded by the prospective authors continuously, without any calls for paper. The selection of articles and book reviews for the upcoming volumes is done on the basis of acceptance of the text on completion of the process of reviewing and revising. As mentioned earlier, each text is peer-reviewed in a double-blind reviewing process by referees selected by us from the Editorial Board, but also beyond. The Editorial Board itself consists of Polish scholars and foreign experts in the area and represents the wide range of research in- terests of its members. All updated information on the journal is available on the journal webpage at www.tapsla.us.edu.pl. The present issue consists of texts which are miscellaneous in their focus, however, the opening article continues the theme of the previous one, code- switching and translanguaging. Sarah Cox—in her text “Can an Ecological, Multilingual Approach Help Us to Better Support Reunited Refugee Families in Scotland with Language Learning?”—focuses on the language learning experi- ences of refugee families in Glasgow reunited through the British Red Cross and investigates in her pilot study the relationship between academic literature, policy and the practice of language learning—drawing on the translanguaging theories of Garcia and Kleifgen (2010) and Norton (2013). The author comments on an ecological multilingual approach implemented in refugee classrooms to demonstrate empowerment, identity, and the need for recognition of their linguistic repertories. Also, the second article in the volume by Teresa Maria Włosowicz entitled “The Influence of Living and Working Abroad on the Identities of Researchers and Native Speaker Teachers” draws readers’ attention to issues of identity as functioning in foreign context, but this time the subjects are academics and native speaker teachers. Using extensive sources (among others Block, 2009; Hall, 2012; Pavlenko & Blackledge, 2004; Dewaele & 7Preface Li, 2012), the author defines and describes the construct of identity, and identity in abroad contexts. Włosowicz intended to demonstrate that an open- minded hybrid identity mentioned in other studies of such subjects would be also present in her project participants. However, this is not entirely the case, as what is observed in the present study is that the native language and the family are more dominant aspects of the subjects’ identity than the foreign context in which they live, but at the same time not denying its positive value for their personal enrichment. In the next text by Meihua Liu entitled “A Study of Chinese University English Majors’ L2 Motivational Self,” the author looks at one of the most important affective dimensions of SL/FL learning that is motivation and presents an interesting empirical study investigating Chinese English majors’ L2 motivational self. The study follows the L2 Motivational Self System as presented by Dörnyei (2005, 2009). The positive results of the study demonstrate not only Chinese students’ high motivation to learn English but also their positive attitudes towards learning it, which leads the author to offer some pedagogical implications for the EFL classroom and a proposal for new avenues of research. Arkadiusz Rojczyk and Andrzej Porzuczek in their text “Detection of Non-native Speaker Status from Backwards and Vocoded Content-masked Speech” investigate speech rhythm as a cue to non-native pronunciation and describe two methods of speech manipulation that allow us to identify native versus non-native speech, otherwise inaccessible to listeners. Unfortunately, it was observed that the subjects in their study were not able to detect non-native accent in Polish learners of English in their manipulated sam- ples. In his text “The Dynamics of Needs in a Course in English Phonetics for In-Service Primary School Teachers of English,” Oleksandr Kapranov discusses the developmental character of the needs expressed by a group of in-service teachers participating in a course of EFL phonetics as part of their profes- sional qualifications. These teachers’ needs evolve from just getting formal qualifications at the beginning to becoming real role models for their learners in terms of fluency of speech and intonation as well as sources of exposure to English towards the end of the course. Also, Katarzyna Holewik, in her text “Peer Feedback and Reflective Practice in Public Service Interpreter Training,” looks at the educational settings in which future public interpreters are being trained. Her major focus is on the role of self-assessment (self-reflection) and peer feedback (peer-reflection) in this process as the stimuli for development of analytical/critical thinking skills, active participation, and collaboration in the learning process. This pilot study conducted among M.A. trainee interpret- ers aimed to assess their interpreting performance by means of peer feedback and self-assessment and compare their outcomes. The analysis demonstrated visible differences between peer feedback and reflection in the assessment of strengths and weaknesses of students’ performance in a cycle of simulated public interpreting session. 8 Preface The present issue also contains two reviews of recent book publications in SLA. The first one, The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingualism, edited by Annick De Houwer and Lourdes Ortega (2019) (reviewed by Anna Ewert) is a valuable addition to the series of Cambridge Handbooks in Language and Linguistics, dedicated to the memory of Jules Ronjat, who is considered a pioneer of bilingualism studies. As a handbook, consisting of six parts (27 chapters), it offers a broad range of topics in the field of individual bilingual- ism in a lifespan from an all-inclusive, developmental and socially contextual- ised perspective. All the texts are written by experts and renowned scholars in the field. The second review is of the monographic volume by Dorota Werbińska The Formation of Language Teacher Identity. A Phenomenographic-Narrative Study (2017) (reviewed by Joanna Rokita-Jaśkow). The book discusses an im- portant issue in (FL) teacher professional development, which is (emerging) teacher identity and the development of teacher knowledge. Using extensive sources on teacher development, her own observations as a teacher trainer and pre-service teacher’s narratives, the author proposes her own original frame- work for developing language teacher identity. We sincerely hope that the readers will find the present issue of interest and value to their own research in the field of second language acquisition, foreign language teaching and learning. At the same time, we would also like to ask Polish and foreign academics to keep supporting the journal by sharing their scholarly research with us, by submitting their original work and book reviews of recent high level publications for the next few volumes. Danuta Gabryś-Barker Adam Wojtaszekhttps://orcid.org/0000-0003-0308-4337 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0626-0703