Charting the trajectory of language teacher cognition development: What 15 years of research in System informs us

Teacher education has always been what our journal, System , plays much emphasis on, and this emphasis has gradually strengthened as research into teacher cognition has gained popularity, particularly following Borg’s influential work in 2006. While earlier studies by Burns (1992) and Woods (1996) had already examined teacher beliefs and their relationships with classroom practices, the mounting attention to this area has significantly shaped the scope of our journal. In the interest of helping our readers to have a fresh memory of how System has been playing an ever-increasing role in disseminating information related to language teaching and learning, and in this case, research into language teacher cognition, we present a historical overview of studies on teacher cognition that have been published in System over the past two decades. In doing so, we would like to show the major themes and trends in teacher cognition research reflected in System from 2008 to 2023 and how System has contributed to advancing this line of study. It is hoped that with our systematic documentation of important work that has been done along these lines in our journal, we do aspire to retain our focus on teacher cognition in our journal in the years to come.