My presentation will overview some ways that linguistic technologies are currently being adapted to solving problems in language pedagogy, particularly with regard to acquiring a lexicon in a second language. Specific adaptations to be presented will include frequency computations, concordances, and lexical units beyond the word. Specific vocabulary problems will include the establishment of goals, the description of the lexical characteristics of texts, and the sparsity of medium frequency lexical items in natural language. Practical applications will be described and depicted, based mainly on work with the Lexutor website (www.lextutor.ca). A backdrop to the presentation will be the issue of the many shorcuts that are taken to achieve arguably short-term solutions to problems. Finally, time permitting the talk will conclude with an overview of the personnages and topics to appear in the Language and Technolopgy section (of which I am editor) in the forthcoming Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics.