Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

e I please you very much you allow me to stay with you this Christmas. (Spanish)
Further reading
Good technical introductions to L2 learning and bilingualism can be found in
Myles and Mitchell, Second Language Learning Theories (2004) and VanPatten and
Williams (2006) Theories in Second Language Acquisition; a brief overview can be
found in ‘Linguistics and second language acquisition: one person with two lan-
guages’ (Cook, 2000) in The Blackwell Handbook of Linguistics. Useful books with
similar purposes but covering slightly different approaches to second language
acquisition are: Lightbown and Spada (2006) How Languages are Learned and Cohen
(1990) Language Learning. Some useful resources to follow up SLA and teaching on
the web are the Second Language Acquisition Bibliography (SLABIB) at http://home-
page.ntlworld.com/vivian.c/Vivian%20Cook.htm; the European Second Language
Association
(EUROSLA) at http://eurosla.org; and Dave’s ESL Café at
www.eslcafe.com Those interested in the nineteenth-century revolution in lan-
guage teaching should go to Howatt (2004) A History of English Language Teaching.
More information is available on the website for this book, www.hoddereducation.
com/viviancook. The issue of the meanings of ‘language’ is treated at greater length
in Cook (2007).
Glosses on language teaching methods
audio-lingual method: this combined a learning theory based on ideas of habit
formation and practice with a view of language as patterns and structures; it
chiefly made students repeat sentences recorded on tape and practise structures in
repetitive drills; originating in the USA in the 1940s, its peak of popularity was
probably the 1960s, though it was not much used in British-influenced EFL (Note:
it is not usually abbreviated to ALM since these initials belong to a particular
trademarked method)