Are Terms ＂African（s）＂ or ＂Black（s）＂ Appropriate Substitutes for ＂Bantu（s）＂ in the South African Context？

The name, ＂Bantu＂, is a classificatory term which refers to a sub-group of the Niger-Congo languages, i.e., the Benue-Congo group of languages, which are spoken extensively in the equatorial and southern part of Africa, as well as the family of peoples speaking these languages. As a result of its association with racism during the Apartheid regime in South Africa, the term was heavily politicized and lost its original meaning to acquire racist connotations. In South Africa, the names ＂African（s）＂ or ＂Black（s）＂ are used as substitutes for the stigmatized name ＂Bantu（s）＂ with reference to the Bantu speaking peoples and their languages. This research investigates the use of the words, ＂Africans＂ and ＂Blacks＂ to assess their suitability as replacements for the word ＂Bantu＂. An intensive outline of the classification of the languages of Africa is given to authenticate the basic meaning of these classificatory terms, especially the term ＂Bantu＂

Appraisal of the Production-Oriented Approach： An Introduction

The production-oriented approach （POA） has been developed over a decade. It is driven by the need to improve English classroom instruction for university students in China （Wen, 2016）. It is also motivated by the aspiration to enhance the quality of foreign language education in other similar pedagogical contexts outside China. A volume of research has been done by Wen Qiufang and her research team, to formulate the theory of POA and to test its effectiveness in classroom pedagogy （e.g. Wen, 2016, 2015; Yang, 2015; Zhang, 2015）. At the moment, the POA is still at an early stage of theory building and almost all empirical research is done in the Chinese context. In order to improve the quality of this theory and to make it intelligible to the international academic community, a one-day symposium was held in Beijing Foreign Studies University on May 15, 2017. The symposium was entitled ＇The first international forum on innovative foreign language education in China： Appraisal of the POA＇. In the forum, leading experts in applied linguistics were invited to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the POA and the directions for its future development. The symposium was the first attempt for the POA research team to discuss its latest work with international scholars. This Viewpoint section collects the responses of four experts who participated in the symposium, listed in alphabetical order. The collection of articles covers three topics related to the POA： its pedagogical application, its use for teacher training, and its research. Alister Cumming is Professor Emeritus and the former Head of the Centre for Educational Research on Languages and Literacies, University of Toronto, Canada. His article focuses primarily on POA research as an exemplary case of design-based research. Rod Ellis is Research Professor in the School of Education at Curtin University, Australia. He discusses POA in terms of pedagogy, teacher training and research, with both critiques and constructive suggestions. Paul Kei Matsuda is Professor of English and Director of Second Language Writing at Arizona State University, the writed states. He responds to POA from the perspective of an expert researcher and teacher of L2 writing. Charlene Polio is Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Linguistics ＆ Germanic, Slavic, Asian ＆ African Languages atMichigan State University, the writed states. She conceptualises POA as a useful method to address some issues in pre-service teacher development. Overall, the articles in this section are insightful and reader-friendly. They are not only useful for the development of POA in particular, but may also be valuable to a broad range of researchers as they touch upon pertaining issues, as well as emerging topics, in the field of applied linguistics. We therefore find it necessary to make them accessible to a wide readership.