Debates in Second Language Education

Ernesto Macaro, Robert Woore, Ernesto Macaro, Robert Woore

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000478488
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Teoria e pratica della didattica

Debates in Second Language Education provides an up-to-date account of the key debates and areas of controversy in the field of second language learning and teaching. Adopting a broad and comparative perspective and emphasising the importance of considering a variety of learning contexts, it encourages students and practising teachers to engage with contemporary issues and developments in learning and teaching.

Chapters are designed to stimulate thinking and understanding in relation to theory and practice, and help language educators to make informed judgements by arguing from a position based on theoretical knowledge and understanding. Bringing together leading contributors in the field, the book discusses a wide range of issues relating to second language learning and teaching including:

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• the relationship between age and success in language learning

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• aptitude versus motivation as predictors of successful language learning

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• linguistic diversity and plurilingualism

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• the teaching of grammar and vocabulary

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• the value of phonics

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• learning pronunciation

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• the second language only versus the multilingual debate

With reflective points in every chapter, Debates in Second Language Education will be a valuable resource for any student or practising teacher, as well as for those engaged in initial teacher education, continuing professional development or Master's level study. It will also be of interest to second language acquisition researchers and those studying applied linguistics.

Part IFraming the debates

1Identifying key debates in second language teaching and learning

Robert Woore and Ernesto Macaro

DOI: 10.4324/9781003008361-3

Introduction

This book attempts to bring to the reader research and commentary on some key issues and debates surrounding second language (L2) teaching and learning in the world today. But what do we actually mean by key issues and debates? This chapter begins with a theoretical and to some extent historical definition of what might be conceived of as an ‘issue’ or ‘debate’. It then reports the results of an international survey investigating L2 practitioners’ beliefs about what they consider to be key issues and debates in the field.

What are ‘debates’?

In many cases, the two terms ‘issue’ and ‘debate’ are used interchangeably in the literature (and indeed in this book). However, we think it can be useful to draw a distinction between them. A useful starting point when attempting to do so might be to consult a dictionary on the meaning of these words. The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) provides the following for ‘issue’: “an important topic or problem for debate or discussion” (p. 969). For ‘debate’ it offers “formal discussion on a particular matter […] in which opposing arguments are put forward” (p. 474). Based on these definitions, the two terms might be distinguished by the extent to which ‘formal discussion’ of a particular matter has taken place and ‘opposing arguments’ put forward. Thus, an ‘issue’ in L2 teaching might be some kind of problem confronting a teacher or policymaker. For example, it is last period on a Friday afternoon, and my 8th-grade class has just had a Physical Education lesson in the rain; I feel that I need to adapt my teaching to take account of these contextual factors, perhaps by reducing the linguistic demands that I might otherwise have placed on my students. However, this cannot be called a ‘debate’ in L2 education, since people have generally not published research into the extent to which lessons should be adapted to a ‘Friday afternoon post-PE’ context. It is not something that people have argued about ‘formally’ in the academic literature on second language acquisition (SLA). By contrast, some questions have clearly been the subject of a long-standing debate in the literature and/or the focus of systematic research investigations. Examples would be: does Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) lead to better language learning outcomes than more traditional Foreign Language classes? Is explicit or implicit grammar instruction more effective? Which language should the teacher use to give instructions in lessons, the target language or the learners’ L1? The ‘debates’ that this book deals with are more in the latter category, but we do not want to underplay the importance of the many ‘issues’ that confront language teachers on a daily basis.

Debates over time

When planning the current book, we wondered to what extent debates in L2 education had changed over preceding decades and to what extent the ‘same old problems’ were recurring. As we found that internet searches did not yield a particularly usable body of information about what the key debates might be, or how they might have changed over time, we tried a more traditional approach: browsing the print holdings of our departmental library. We perused the contents pages of edited volumes on the shelves, noting the date of publication and how the titles and chapters might reflect the notion of a ‘debate’ in our field. Table 1.1 presents, chronologically, what we found. Clearly, we are not claiming this to be a systematic or exhaustive collection of edited volumes, but we hope that it at least provides some insight into how editors have gone about presenting what they believed to be key debates in L2 education. Incidentally, we can observe that six editors opted for the term ‘issues’ in their titles, two used the term ‘perspectives’ (Johnson & Porter, 1983; Beebe, 1988), one used ‘controversies’ (Seidlhofer, 2003) and one used ‘debates’ (Driscoll et al., 2014).

Table 1.1 A selective, chronological overview of edited volumes in L2 education

Publication date	Editor(s)	Book title	Sections and/or chapter headings (in abbreviated or condensed form and using some of our own terminology)
1983	Johnson & Porter	Perspectives in CLT	CLT; curriculum design; curriculum development; CLT and teacher education; assessing communicative proficiency
1988	Beebe	Issues in Second Language Acquisition: Multiple Perspectives	Psycholinguistic issues; sociolinguistic approaches; neuropsychology and L2 acquisition
2000	Field	Issues in Modern Foreign Language Teaching	Able pupils; mixed-ability grouping; girls versus boys as learners; role of grammar; cultural awareness; use of L2/L1; assessment; role of Information technology
2002	Richards & Renandya	Methodology in Language Teaching	Four skills; grammar; vocabulary; pronunciation; technology; professional development
2002	Block & Cameron	Globalization & language teaching	The local and the global; language learning as economic commodity
2002	Robinson	Individual Differences and Instructed Language Learning	Motivation; anxiety; emotion; aptitude; disabilities; working memory; age
2003	Seidlhofer	Controversies in Applied Linguistics	(Those that apply to L2 learning) Varieties/standard language; linguistic imperialism/hegemony; psycholinguistic versus sociocultural approaches (a collection of published papers spanning some 20 years)
2003	Bourne & Reid	Language Education	Bilingual education; L2 support for curriculum learning; English as an additional language; policy & curriculum across countries
2005	Johnson	Expertise in L2 Learning and Teaching	Learner expertise in the four skills; good language learner; teacher expertise
2006	Muñoz	Age and the Rate of FL Learning	Role that age plays in: amount of exposure, oral fluency, vocabulary learning, morphological acquisition, writing development; strategy use
2007	Mackey	Conversational Interaction in SLA	Learning opportunities in interaction; feedback effect on learners
2008	Lantolf & Poehner	Sociocultural Theory and the Teaching of L2s	ZPD; Dynamic assessment; embodied performance; concept-based instruction; the classroom-world nexus
2008	Gabryś-Barker	Morphosyntactic Issues in Second Language Acquisition	Language transfer; argument realization; acquisition of difficult grammatical features
2009	Benati	Issues in L2 Proficiency	Theories of proficiency; factors contributing to attainment in L2 proficiency
2009	Evans	FL Learning with Digital Technology	Potential of the internet; beliefs of trainee teachers; bilingual/cross-cultural online discourse; textbook to online materials
2009	Van den Branden et al.	Task-based Language Teaching	General intro to TBLT; curriculum & task design; variables affecting task-based learning; task-based language assessment
2009	Turnbull & Dailey-O'Cain	L1 Use in Second & FL Learning	L1 in different constituent classrooms; English and other languages; primary and secondary education; dual language programmes
2010	Moreno-Jaen et al.	Exploring New Paths in Language Pedagogy	Corpus-based vocabulary; corpus-based evidence in pedagogy; theory to practice
2011	Hall et al.	L2 Interaction Competence and Development	Interaction as social activity; development of L2 interactional competence
2011	Sanz & Leow	Implicit and Explicit Language Learning	Theories, practice, methodological issues involved in: morphosyntax, phonology, bilingualism
2012	Diadori	How to Train Language Teacher Trainers	Major issues in language teacher training; European documents on teacher assessment; multilingualism; teacher competence; teacher certification; assessment and self-assessment
2013	Benati	Issues in Second Language Teaching	Grammar teaching; interaction & corrective feedback; four skills;
2014	Driscoll et al.	Debates in Modern Languages Education	Historical overview of language teaching; cognitive processing; evidence-based practice; four skills; grammar; vocabulary; cultural awareness; motivation; strategies; progression; CLIL; primary school languages
2014	Solly & Esch	Language Education and the Challenges of Globalization	Globalized classrooms and equal rights; medium of instruction policy; language education of immigrant students; divisive nature of education; non-native speech acceptability

Table 1.1 suggests there are two basic approaches taken by editors.

1. They decide that a particular aspect of SLA is important and then commission various chapter authors to provide research and commentary as sub-sections of that particular aspect. Examples are: Benati (2009), looking at aspects of L2 proficiency; Robinson (2002) on individual differences in L2 learning; Mackey (2007) on conversational interaction in SLA; and Muñoz (2006), exploring the age factor in instructed L2 learning.
2. They identify numerous aspects of SLA which need to be examined and presented as debates to their readers. They commission authors to provide research and commentary on each of these individually. Examples of this approach are: Field's (2000) Issues in Modern Foreign Language Teaching; Long & Doughty's (2011) Handbook of Language Teaching; Benati's (2013) Issues in Second Language Teaching; and Driscoll et al.'s (2014) Debates in Modern Languages Education.

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