Book review: Common Ground : Second Language Acquisition Theory Goes to the Classroom

Good books about modern/world language teaching don't come along that often, so I'm always interested to read anything new. Having followed Dr Florencia Henshaw's "Unpacking..." screencasts on YouTube I was also interested to see a more classroom-oriented book.

So this book is by Florencia Henshaw, a teacher educator and classroom teacher and Maris Hawkins, a classroom teacher. It is published by Hackett Publishing at a very low price of under £10 in the UK, if you get the Kindle version, as I did. This is extremely good value given the considerable amount of content.

The book is therefore in the 'for teachers, by teachers' tradition, but, as the title suggests, the prime objective is to take research findings and apply them to everyday classroom practice. The book is a very clear and readable introduction to some key aspects of second language acquisition (SLA) research, such as input, output, interaction, communication, corrective feedback, assessment, implicit and explicit learning. Each of these concepts is explained in very teacher-friendly style with some light-touch research references. (More references - articles, videos and podcasts - are available from the accompanying web page provided by the publisher.)

Each of the six chapters is clearly organised into three sections as follows:

1. What do I need to know? (the theory)
2. What does it look like in the classroom? (classroom examples)
3. Now that you know. (discussion and expansion questions)

The six chapters consider: Guiding principles; Goals and Assessment; Input; Reading, listening and viewing; Output; Interaction. 

Research authors cited include Bill VanPatten (a strong influence, you can tell), Stephen Krashen, Michael Long, Rod Ellis, Patsy Lightbown and Nina Spada, Merrill Swain and William Grabe. We all have our biases, and in the case the influence of North American writers and writers from the task-based tradition is notable. Researchers who value explicit learning a bit more highly - I would include Ronald Leow, Paul Nation and Frank Boers here - are not referred to. Indeed, explicit learning gets pretty short shrift in the book. (Researchers disagree about the extent of its importance. Florencia and Maris more than once are clear in saying that second language learning is not like first language acquisition and is 'mostly' implicit. No argument about that!)

The book chooses not to look at all at the fashionable (in the UK at least) area of cognitive science - issues such as working memory limitations, cognitive load, spacing, forgetting curves and the testing effect. There may be good reasons for this; after all, you can argue that cognitive science seems more interested in explicit learning than implicit learning. I suspect it's more just about what American teachers and SLA researchers are interested in. It does reveal a bit of a gulf between teaching in the US and the UK. Maybe some more common ground is needed!

The book is rich is examples of classroom lessons in the communicative tradition. Info-gaps abound! They are classified according to ACTFL terminology such as 'interpretive', 'presentational' and 'interpersonal' and levels such as 'novice-mid'. This may be a bit off-putting to readers outside the USA (notably Chapter 2), but it need not be, in my opinion. Descriptions of lessons are clear, very useful for novices, though at times I was not certain whether some steps would be in the shared language (L1) or the target language (L2). By the way, the authors do consider the implications of how we label these things, so for example the TL may not be L2, it may be L3. They also take a measured view of target language use - it's important because you need lots of input, but input has to be understood and there are good times for using the shared language.

A few random points: 

• I like the 'In case you are wondering' boxes which break up the pages visually and provide more food for thought. 

• I like how each chapter begins with some questions for reflection. There is a real attempt to encourage teachers to both learn and think critically. 

• There is a very good section on corrective feedback, which explains very clearly how complex this area is but that in general we should 'curb our expectations' about the effectiveness of correction. The notion of 'focus on forms' versus 'focus on form' (Long) is clearly explained. 

• I like the authors' reluctance to compartmentalise vocabulary and grammar. Although they don't mention 'chunking', the lesson plans do always emphasise the use of connected language and 'grammar in context'. One more: the authors clearly explain the VanPatten idea of Processing Instruction - designing input to force students how to make form-meaning connections. (This would be familiar to NCELP followers.) Processing Instruction seems a sensible way to organise input, even if the research on it has produced mixed results so far.

• There is a nuanced discussion of what it means to incorporate intercultural understanding in lessons (even if this doesn't actually feature that much is some of the lessons proposed).

The book does have a clearly transformative goal: to encourage teachers away from traditional approaches based on grammar-translation and audiolingualism, towards 'proficiency-based' teaching (an American term) and a communicative approach. It's like taking Bill VanPatten's short book While We're On the Topic (2017) and turning it into something much more detailed. Some teachers may find some of the lesson ideas hard to implement in classrooms with reluctant learners and little prior linguistic knowledge - I'm thinking for example of the Dragon's Den-style business pitch, creating illustrated books (a good use of time?) or research projects. Some may also lament the little attention given to building bottom-up skills. The 'skill building' view of language teaching, using terms such as 'encoding', 'processing' and 'automatisation' is not at all favoured. Some would argue that you have to do a fair bit of this (often in enjoyable gamified ways) before you can move on to more communicative tasks. I know the authors would disagree!

Some readers may also question how strict we need to be about what constitutes 'communication' and whether this is a necessary pre-requisite for useful and enjoyable language learning experiences. Others will feel that explicit teaching of grammar and drilling is undervalued. One quotation which amused me was this:

"If you want students to do well on exams that test their memorisation skills and correct application of rules, then mechanical practice might be the way to go."

Teachers in England take note!

To sum up, I liked this book very much. Rich and clear on both theory and classroom application. Teachers who have always favoured a comprehension-based, communicative approach will love it, while those who are more sceptical will find a good deal to make them think.