Selected papers from the annual meeting of the British Association for Applied Linguistics include the following: "The Scope of Applied Linguistics" (a brief introduction by Paul Meara); "Grading and Professionalism in ELT (English Language Teaching)" (Gillian Brown); "'The Arm of the Chair Is Where You Use For To Write': Developing Strategic Competence in a Second Language" (Elaine Tarone); "Language Production-Language Contact: The Significance of Learners' Speech" (Hans Dechert); "Towards an Alternative Model of Second Language Learning" (Jill Bourne); "Interpretations and Explanations in Discourse: Modes of Advising in Family Planning" (C. Candlin, J. Lucas); "Acknowledging the Conversational Attempts of a Young Mentally Handicapped Child" (Susan Edwards); "Writing in a Foreign Language and Rhetorical Transfer: Influences on Raters' Evaluations" (Liz Hamp-Lyons); "Conversation as Listening Material: The Prosodic Bases of Difficulty" (Catherine Johns-Lewis); "Where Does Language Aptitude Come From?" (Peter Skehan); and "As Teacher, As Learner" (Olivia Farrington). (MSE)