Witnessing an exchange of emails with an editor a few years ago prompted me to ponder the scope of logical fallacies and how they affect decision-making in education and beyond. After refusing to publish an article on dubious grounds, the sender told the recipient that the problem with L2 speakers is that they fail to understand certain idioms, making reference to an expression used during correspondence to support the decision made. Alas, fallacious reasoning was at play – not only did it involve a faulty overgeneralisation of L2 speakers but it also assumed that the recipient was not an L1 . . .
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