Introduction to responses to Lantolf, Poehner, and Rieker's (2025) “Crisis! Commentary on 'synergies' in second language acquisition and teaching (SLA/T) and how the field may advance” (a response to Atkinson, Michel, and Ribeiro (Eds.) (2025) MLJ special issue: “Synergies in second language acquisition and teaching (SLA/T)”)

Finding synergetic cooperation in any area of human life would seem to be important in a world where crises are multiplying, leading to more and more discord and horror. That was part of the motivation underlying (what we called) the Synergies Project. Bringing 17 scholars together from around the world—each with their own well-developed way of researching second language acquisition and teaching (SLA/T)—was challenging, but it presented a rare opportunity to look more widely, think more broadly, and interact more cooperatively regarding SLA/T than most of us usually do. This project thus provided a powerful antidote to the inclination to believe that one holds the truth in one's hands, or at least that one's own SLA/T approach is somehow automatically “better” or “more accurate” than others. We had no doubt that while we each might know some part of what we called “the SLA/T Elephant” (Atkinson et al., 2025b), none of us had a full grasp of SLA/T as a complex human phenomenon of the first order. Thus, our project was based on the conviction that we could learn more about our complex object of study both individually and as a field if we put our heads together. We knew that the result would not fit together neatly like a rubric's cube or jigsaw puzzle, but that it would provide a path for the cooperative exploration of the intricacies of what we study, and therefore for widening and deepening our shared understanding. The project reported on in the guest-edited issue had multiple origins. However, the animating spark was Marije's invitation to Dwight to speak at a session of AILA 2021 on a topic of shared interest—alignment—but from vastly different perspectives (Atkinson et al., 2007; Kim most were very well-established; and age, racioethnic, linguistic, and theoretical diversity was lacking. The Synergies Project was therefore partly an attempt to cover some of the same ecumenical ground as the Douglas Fir Group (2016) but with a wider range of contributors. The main aim, as we envisioned it, was to bring a variety of views into constructive interaction—to see what we shared and could take further together on that basis—rather than to play the more typical academic “doubting game” (Elbow, 1973; Larsen-Freeman, 2000 for SLA). As a group, we operated on the shared conviction that if we thought together, wrote together, and (most of all) met face-to-face and talked together, we could do something different and possibly useful for the field, in addition to broadening our own understandings. Like any exploratory effort, limitations remain: A co-aim of the project—to attain the widest possible diversity of views and background—was more challenging than expected; this part of the project remains unfinished. We have nonetheless made a start, and our shared product—the guest-edited issue—now exists for whatever purposes it will be put to by the SLA/T profession. We thank Lantolf et al. (2025) for getting the ball rolling. Developing shared values and broad perspectives represents neither a crisis in SLA/T studies nor an ideal solution. Rather, it represents the basis for what can and should be the permanent work of humanity: cooperative activity, of which learning and teaching—including of additional languages—are fundamental parts, leading to our increasing humanization. The responses in this section do not shy away from dialectic expression of differences, but they do so in a spirit of cooperative construction of a shared enterprise, and they seek to include whoever may join in building the SLA/T field in the future. That is, in the spirit of Lantolf (1996), “Let all the flowers bloom!” (title); or, in our words, let the synergistic project continue! The authors declare no conflicts of interest.