second language theories

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Language Teaching Research

DOI: 10.1177/136216889900300306

1999; 3; 280 Language Teaching Research Masaki Kobayashi Book Review: Second language learning theories https://www.360docs.net/doc/2313248693.html,

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280Book reviews

(p.133) with portfolios.The course and manner of such change could be subjected to empirical research.

Apart from such compartmentalized investigation,there is a need to evaluate curriculum-in-action as a whole that could build on the recommendations made in the book.Such a curriculum research programme should be able to tease out what has and has not changed for the better and why.This kind of research will necessarily be complex,taking into account all that is known about the social,contextual and cognitive factors that interact with curriculum.To keep the enormity of these factors in order in the researcher’s mind,the integrated model of literacy practice illustrated in Figure 1 (p.18) should be helpful.Johns encourages collaboration among literacy teachers,students,discipline-specific faculty,and administrators to implement a socioliterate curriculum.Researchers in the area of literacy instruction should also be part of the collaborative team assessing and improving the curriculum.

Note

1The term ‘soft power’ was originally used in contrast to the ‘hard power’ of military might in political science to refer to a means for diplomatic negotiations through the use of knowledge,information,culture,ideas and communication.The term is used broadly here.

Sufumi So

Carnegie Mellon University Rosamond Mitchell and Florence Myles. 1998: Second language learning theories. London: Arnold. 228pp. $19.95 (PB). ISBN 034066312-X.

Mitchell and Myles state that the general aim of Second language learning theories is ‘to provide an up-to-date,introductory overview of the current state of second language learning studies’ (p.ix).The book is also intended as a complement to McLaughlin’s (1987) book,Theories of second language learning,and focuses on theoretical orientations that are deemed most significant and

Book reviews281 productive in the 1990s.The authors have also made a special effort to include orientations that view L2 learners as social beings,with a range of characteristics that are constantly reconstructed through social interaction with others in the target language.

Chapter 1 provides an overview of concepts and issues that will recur in subsequent chapters,built around five key themes: Characteristics of a good theory;views on the nature of language; the language learning process;views of the language learner;and links between language learning theory and social practice. Chapter 2 retraces the recent history of second language learning research and explores the basis of today’s thinking.

The core of the book begins with Chapter 3,which discusses the Universal Grammar (UG) orientation.Despite its excessive focus on syntax as well as methodological drawbacks,the authors consider this orientation to be a good theory as defined in Chapter 1 for the following reasons.First,it is a useful tool for linguistic analysis that enables researchers to ‘formulate well-defined and focused hypotheses which could then be tested in empirical work’(p.70).Second,this approach attempts not only to describe but also to explain some SLA phenomena.

Chapter 4 discusses cognitive approaches to L2 learning, approaches which attempt to investigate how the human brain processes and acquires new knowledge.While they acknowledge the contribution of these approaches to our understanding of SLA processes,the authors point out that to date those working on cognition and language learning have not convincingly explained what the learner’s knowledge consists of,what constrains L2 learners’ hypotheses about the language system,or what route learners follow.

Chapter 5 examines functional/pragmatic perspectives on L2 learning.According to the authors,researchers in this tradition argue that attention should be paid to the functions which learners are attempting to perform in order to sensibly interpret the great variety of interlanguage generated by them,and that their meaning-making efforts promote ongoing second language development.These researchers have treated interlanguage communication systematically and thoroughly to show the great variety of lexical and pragmatic devices that learners use in order to communicate their meaning.Functionalist research,however,

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has so far focused on the early stages of development in natural settings,and has not paid much attention to the input and interaction in which learners are engaged,nor to instructed L2 acquisition.

Chapter 6 examines the interactionist tradition,which was originally sparked by Krashen’s Input Hypothesis and Long’s Interaction Hypothesis and which the authors maintain has made several important achievements.In particular,it has demonstrated that negotiations between native speakers (NS) and non-native speakers (NNS) in problem-solving tasks involve both linguistic and interactional modifications,which together provide learners opportunities to notice target language structures in the form of either positive or negative feedback,and that NNSs in negotiation for meaning can attend to,adopt and deploy linguistic information made available by their NS interlocutors.One limitation is that input/interaction studies have been conducted almost exclusively within Western/Anglophone educational settings.The authors suggest that extensive crosscultural studies need to be carried out before the claim can be made that ‘negotiation for meaning’ is a ‘universal phenomenon’ (p.142).

Chapter 7 reviews and evaluates Vygotskian sociocultural theories.The authors stress that unlike the other orientations discussed earlier,this orientation views language learning as social process and the learner as social being.Central to this perspective are the notions of the Zone of Proximal Development,scaffolding, regulation,microgenesis (a process of new concepts being acquired through social interaction between expert and novice),private and inner speech,and activity theory – all of which are clearly described and discussed with examples.The authors maintain that theorists in this tradition do not provide ‘any very thorough or detailed view of the nature of language as a formal system’ (p.161) or insight into rates and route of L2 learning,and that the concept of learning is not well-defined.

In Chapter 8,the authors introduce four different strands of research on L2 learning:the ethnography of communication, variation in L2 use,pidginization,and acculturation and language socialization.As the authors explain,all but the studies of L2 variation can be classified as qualitative.These qualitative strands view L2 learning holistically in relation to its social context.The

Book reviews283 authors point out that L2 sociolinguists are primarily committed to characterizing this context and particularly to offering detailed accounts of L2 social interaction.To many current ethnographers, the nature of learners’ identity and engagement with L2 learning are not fixed,but constantly constructed and reconstructed in the course of social interaction.Unlike the three other strands,the quantitative research of L2 variation looks at how individual morphemes are realized,and has helped us better understand the psycholinguistics of L2 processing notwithstanding its socio-linguistic origin.

The authors compare sociolinguistic research and Vygotskian sociocultural research,noting that in both traditions L2 learning is viewed as a collaborative effort and L2 knowledge as something that is socially constructed through interaction.However,the former tradition has not paid as much attention as the latter to the linguistic aspects of expert/novice interaction.The authors state that researchers of both L2 communication and language socialization have provided a great deal of evidence as to how the rate of L2 learning may be affected by the learning context and the learner’s developing style of engagement with it.Up to now, though,L2 socialization research has not investigated the actual route of language development as seriously as has been done for L1 development.

In Chapter 9,the authors summarize the development of L2 theories and their limitations,while emphasizing the importance of continuing to attempt to cross-reference different research strands.Finally,they discuss the relationship between L2 research and education and call for continuing ‘dialogues between the “practical theories”of classroom educators,and the more decontextualized and abstract ideas deriving from programmes of research’ (p.194).

Although Second language learning theories is a useful and interesting addition to the bookshelves of practising and future language professionals,as an introduction it does not pay detailed attention to particular theories or research methods,nor does it discuss a large number of studies.Furthermore,it lacks a glossary, a feature which would greatly assist the reader.Despite these limitations,however,the book offers balanced coverage of current L2 learning theories – linguistic,cognitive and sociocultural – and

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is a reader-friendly book,which is likely to stimulate dialogue between L2 researchers and classroom teachers.

Masaki Kobayashi

University of British Columbia McLaughlin, B.1987:Theories of second language learning.London: Edward Arnold.