As Larsen-Freeman (2018) wrote in her own historical account of second language acquisition (SLA) 'it is important to understand ideas at the time they originated' (p. 56). This is certainly true of the field of second language acquisition (SLA). Rod Ellis adds that it is also important to understand how the ideas that motivated a field of enquiry…

Task-based language teaching (TBLT) and task-supported language teaching (TSLT) are often seen as incompatible as they draw on different theories of language learning and language teaching. The position adopted in this article, however, is that both approaches are needed especially in instructional contexts where 'pure' task-based teaching may be…

Idealization plays a fundamental role in scientific inquiry. This article examines the case for maintaining the claim that the second language acquisition (SLA) of grammatical structures such as negation manifests identifiable stages of acquisition. It proposes that, while research has demonstrated the need for de-idealization, there is no need to…

The kind of technical knowledge found in teacher guides is fundamentally different from the kind of technical knowledge found in published research about language learning. I refer to the former as "pedagogic discourse" and to the latter as "research-based discourse". The purpose of this article is to examine how links can be…

Most studies that have investigated the effects of instruction on the SLA of specific grammatical features have focused on intentional learning. This study investigated incidental acquisition by comparing the relative effects of two types of instruction--comprehension-based instruction (CBI) and production-based instruction (PBI)--on young…

Various positions regarding the Second Language Acquisition (SLA)-Language Pedagogy (LP) nexus have been advanced. Taking these as a starting point, this article will examine the nature of the SLA/LP relationship both more generally and more concretely. First, it will place the debates evident in the different positions regarding the relationship…

The main purpose of this article is to review studies that have investigated the effects of three types of planning (rehearsal, pre-task planning, and within-task planning) on the fluency, complexity, and accuracy of L2 performance. All three types of planning have been shown to have a beneficial effect on fluency but the results for complexity…

Recasts have continued to be the object of intensive empirical and theoretical inquiry following Nicholas, Lightbown, and Spada's (2001) review. The current article identifies a number of problems with this research and the supporting theory. These problems concern the fact that recasts can take many different forms and perform a variety of…

A number of theories of second language L2 acquisition acknowledge a role for explicit L2 knowledge. However, the testing of these theories remains problematic because of the lack of a widely accepted means for measuring L2 explicit knowledge. This article seeks to address this lacuna by examining L2 explicit knowledge from two perspectives.…

A problem facing investigations of implicit and explicit learning is the lack of valid measures of second language implicit and explicit knowledge. This paper attempts to establish operational definitions of these two constructs and reports a psychometric study of a battery of tests designed to provide relatively independent measures of them.…

The traditional approach to grammar teaching provides learners with opportunities to produce specific grammatical structures. This article explores an alternative approach, one based on interpreting input. The rationale for the approach is discussed, as are the principles for designing interpretation tasks for grammar teaching. (Contains 35…

This article reviews previous studies of the effects of implicit and explicit corrective feedback on SLA, pointing out a number of methodological problems. It then reports on a new study of the effects of these two types of corrective feedback on the acquisition of past tense -ed. In an experimental design (two experimental groups and a control…