English Language Teaching in its Social Context

SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 65explanation. Teachers are concerned with the effective use of language and with itspropagation.Just as we can distinguish between applied linguistics and linguistics applied so we canalso distinguish applied SLA and SLA applied. In the case of the latter, an attempt is made toapply SLA research and theory to language pedagogy.This is what many SLA researchers haveexpressed doubt about doing, advising caution. In the case of applied SLA, however, anattempt is made to examine the relevance of SLA in educational terms; it requires the SLAresearcher to have knowledge of the theory and practice of both SLA and language pedagogy.Only when SLA researchers engage in applied SLA do they function as applied linguists.’3A good example of applied SLA is to be found in Brindley’s (1990) account of a coursehe taught as part of a postgraduate diploma in adult TESOL. Brindley dismisses whathe sees as the traditional approach of SLA courses which he characterizes as ‘we give you thetheory ~ you apply it’ (the approach implicit in Stern’s 1983 advocacy of foundation studies)in favour of an approach that provides opportunities for the participants to analyse data.Thisencourages them to reformulate broad SLA research questions in terms of classroomimplications and includes a strong problem-posing/problem-solving element by inviting theparticipants to address specific classroom situations in the light of insights drawn from theirstudy of SLA and to discuss options for classroom applications. Brindley did include aknowledge component of the course (i.e. he provided an introduction to key topics andterminology) but in accordance with his applied SLA stance, he invited the participants toidentify those SLA topics they found most relevant to their concerns. Interestingly, he foundthat psycholinguistic studies of developmental sequences (generally considered of centralimportance by SLA researchers) came bottom of the list, possibly because the teachers’primary concern was with teaching rather than learning.Applied SLA, then, as a branch of applied linguistics, must necessarily concern itself withrelevance. SLA is concerned with developing models ofhow L2 learners acquire knowledgeof a second language but it cannot be assumed that these models are of any value to teachers.Indeed, in many cases they probably are not. It is no more corrcct to assume that a theoryof language learning is of relevance to teachers than it is to assume that a theory of languageis. Relevance must necessarily be determined not from within SLA but from without ~ bydemonstrating how the findings of SLA address the needs and concerns of practitioners.How then can SLA be made relevant to pedagogy? An answer to this question can befound in Widdowson’s (1990) discussion of the roles of the applied linguist (see Figure 3.2).TheoryAPPRAISAL(in principle)InterpretationConceptualevaluationI(of technique)OperationEmpiricalevaluationFigure 3.2 Relating disciplinary theory and language pedagogySource: Widdowson 1990: 32