Geoff Jordan is well known to some as an acerbic commentator on English Language Teaching (ELT) methodology. His blogs are well-informed and sometimes highly critical of individual scholars and teacher educators. This book is more measured in tone and provides a useful, clearly written introduction to 30 key concepts in second language acquisition research. (He explains in the text that he prefers the term ‘additional’ to ‘second’, but the title remains, probably because it is so widely used and understood.)
Jordan’s main starting point for the book is that most language teaching fails and does so because teachers do not know enough about what research says about SLA. So the book aims to rectify this.
Concepts covered include biggies such as explicit and implicit learning, comprehensible input, interlanguage, noticing, Universal Grammar versus Emergentism, aptitude, motivation, synthetic and analytic syllabuses. Other areas less familiar to many teachers include the social turn in research, acculturation, multi-competence, processability theory and contrastive analysis.
Each section offers a summary of research findings together with pedagogical implications. I found the former more useful than the latter, which are brief and of a very general nature. This book is more theoretical than practical.
For those familiar with Geoff Jordan’s writing, you will not be surprised to learn that his general view is that research supports the use of an analytic syllabus and task-based teaching in its strong form. He explains clearly why the traditional synthetic lego-style syllabus - piecing together with grammar rules the constituent parts of language (phonemes, words, word parts, phrases), building up the language bit by bit - does not accord with research. He shares this belief with writers about pedagogy including Florencia Henshaw and Maris Hawkins in their Common Ground book, Lara Bryfonski and Alison Mackey in The Art and Science of Language Teaching and Bill VanPatten in his While We’re on the Topic.
That said, I liked the mention of the fact that many teachers working within synthetic/PPP syllabuses find ways to make lessons enjoyable by incorporating communicative tasks and to, as he puts it, accelerate acquisition. I also appreciated his comment that teaching remains more of an art than a science. I liked the emphasis on the value of implicit learning over explicit instruction, and the space given over to interlanguage and developmental trajectories - in a nutshell, what we teach may not be what students acquire. This is generally not understood by teachers in my experience.
A concise book of this type is bound to deal with some areas more sketchily than others. I found the sections on UG and emergentism, noticing and input stronger than the sections on neurolinguistics and motivation, for example. He writes a bit about working memory constraints but did not get into Cognitive Load Theory, depth of processing and forgetting. Cognitive science merited more coverage, I think. In the motivation section he could have written more about Self-Determination Theory, especially the Competence component (similar to Bandura’s self-efficacy, surely a massive part of the motivation equation). Some teachers (including myself) may find the inclusion of the social turn, multi-competence, ZPD and acculturation a little marginal.
Overall, I found this a good introduction to key concepts, but teachers should not expect to see much pedagogy here. That wasn’t the brief.
Maybe decision makers in my MFL world should take heed from books like this, as they plough on with their belief in ‘solid foundations’ and explicit instruction of vocabulary, grammar and phonics.
Is Geoff Jordan right when he writes that most teachers get no grounding in SLA research? Partly, I think. My impression is that in England coverage is patchy on PGCE courses but teacher-mediators, including myself and Gianfranco Conti, have tried to make a difference. From the academic world writers like Michael Long, Patsy Lightbown, Rod Ellis, Paul Nation, Bill VanPatten, Florencia Henshaw, Lara Bryfonski and others have also wielded influence. There is still a way to go.
I read Geoff’s book on Kindle at a very reasonable £9.95.
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