System 46 (2014) 176e182

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Book reviews

Exploring Language Pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition Research, R. Ellis, N. Shintani. Routledge, London,New York (2014). xi þ 388 pp.

In the brief review of second language acquisition (SLA) principles that constitutes the first chapter of their new book, Ellisand Shintani devote several paragraphs to describing Schmidt's (1990) Noticing Hypothesis. This hypothesis states thatlearners first need to be consciously aware of gaps between their current competence and ideal production before they areable to take steps toward improving. Paralleling this idea, Ellis and Shintani's book has now brought full focus to the gap thathas lurked below the consciousness of SLA researchers and language teachers: There has, for many decades, been a chasmbetween the pedagogical knowledge developed and shared by teachers and the theoretical principles uncovered by SLAresearchers, and past efforts to connect the two bodies of knowledge have failed to consider a key perspective.

Previous attempts to connect SLA research insights with teachers (e.g., Hedge, 2000; Lightbown& Spada, 2006) have comefrom the perspective of consolidating theoretical principles from SLA and drawing conclusions to inform ideal practice thatwould accord to the principles. Thus, previous attempts to bridge the gap have been unidirectional: moving from theory topractice. Ellis and Shintani flip this idea on its head and instead take pedagogical principles that are currently being applied inthe world's classrooms, and evaluate them under the lens of SLA theory to determine their level of concordance with whatempirical research has shown to be effective. This perspective acknowledges the presence of practical concerns that mayrestrict teachers at the chalkface, such as limited preparation time and resources, students of unequal ability, and students' orparents' expectations, that may be glossed over in controlled laboratory (or even classroom-based) SLA research. Instead ofassuming a perfect world where language teachers are able to instantly modify their teaching to fit the most empiricallyeffective principles, this perspective starts with the reality of today's classrooms and examines where current practices mightaccord well with what SLA researchers have suggested is ideal, and where they might be realistically modified to better alignwith theory.

As mentioned previously, the first chapter of the book is devoted to a brief overview of the history of SLA, concluding with11 general principles hypothesised by SLA researchers to result in more effective acquisition of the target language. Thissection, at 24 pages in length, is necessarily required to skim over much of the depth as far as studies that support the mainfindings, and rather focusesmostly on one or two key papers for each trend throughout SLA history. The brevity of this sectionallows it to be accessible to teachers whomay not have a grounding in SLA theory, and focussing on the main authors for eacharea allows readers who are interested in learning more to quickly identify seminal work that can be read in more depth.

Following the introductory section, the book is split into three main sections, with each chapter taking a general peda-gogical construct and assessing it according to the 11 principles from SLA. Part II focuses on the ‘external perspective’, withchapters on teaching methods, linguistic syllabi, form-focused instruction, comprehension-based and production-basedapproaches, and task-based language teaching (TBLT). In Part III, the focus is shifted to the ‘internal perspective’, withchapters on input, interaction, the use of the first language (L1) in teaching a second language (L2), and corrective feedback.Part IV consists of a single chapter on individual differences in learners. The book concludes with a final chapter in which,confusingly, the purpose of the book and the reasons for the shift in perspective to examining pedagogical principles and theiralignment with theoretical principles are explained. Although this information would have presumably fitted better in theintroduction, it still provides a convincing argument and illustrates the need for this perspective to receive more consider-ation. The authors also provide a comprehensive glossary of SLA terminology that allows the main text to be streamlinedwhile still accommodating readers without a background in SLA theory.

Despite the uniform structure of the book, with each chapter focussing on an important pedagogical construct, theconclusions provided by each chapter are somewhat inconsistent. In some chapters, such as those on explicit instruction andcorrective feedback, clear guidelines are given as to how SLA researchers would view current classroom practice, and howteachers could modify their practice to better fit theories. Other chapters, such as that on individual learner differences,describe SLA research that has been conducted to address the issues, but draw few conclusions that could be useful forteachers. Perhaps this is a problemwithout a good solution, as many areas in SLA still lack consensus, but these chapters feelslightly out of place in a book that endeavours to help teachers to implement aspects of SLA theory in their classroom practice.

Book reviews / System 46 (2014) 176e182 177

One oddity in the book is that although the other chapters are balanced fairly, with opposing arguments evenly consid-ered, Chapter 6 is extremely supportive of TBLT and swiftly rejects all objections to its superiority. Studies that find fault withTBLT are dismissed as flawed and the message appears to be that TBLT can be adapted to cover any perceived weaknesses.However, the idea of TBLT as described in this chapter is nebulous and poorly defined. This chapter would be greatly improvedwith the addition of some sample tasks that clearly illustrate how TBLT can be applied in real classrooms and show differentaspects of how it can be adapted to address various SLA principles.

Exploring Language Pedagogy through Second Language Acquisition Research is aimed at teachers who may not necessarilyhave read extensively in the SLA literature. Rather than relying on esoteric texts from the SLA literature, the book makesfrequent references to common pedagogical texts such as Scrivener (2005) and Harmer (2007) and so could be easily graspedby teachers who have completed popular pre-service training courses such as the University of Cambridge Certificate inEnglish Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA). However, I would hesitate to recommend this book to novice teachers, as muchof the value comes from being able to evaluate one's own teaching practice with the hindsight of having attempted variousmethods and techniques and observed their effects on different students and classrooms. As such, this book would be bettersuited as part of a Masters-level programme in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) or as professionaldevelopment for more experienced teachers. Each chapter in the book also includes a number of discussion questionsdesigned to promote further engagement with the materialdthese questions would be of an appropriate level for post-graduate students or experienced teachers.

In contrast to past texts that have attempted to bring SLA theory to teachers, Ellis and Shintani's book gives a fair amount ofcredit to language teachers. Rather than assuming that teachers simply need to be made aware of empirically proven SLAprinciples in order to achieve the most effective teaching, Ellis and Shintani allow for the idea that, in language teachers'attempts to make the best out of the difficult and complicated situation that is the real-life classroom, the best laid plans ofmice and men often go awry and compromises must be made. Along these lines, I would argue that teachers should take anuanced view of the suggestions made in this book, and incorporate them into their own practice only after careful intro-spection and consideration of how they might fit in the particular classroom context. Despite its prescriptive tone in someparts, this book brings a fresh perspective to the problem of incorporating theory into practice, and its approachable naturemay help to bridge the chasm between SLA researchers and language teachers in a way that respects both sides for theirknowledge and expertise.

References

Harmer, J. (2007). The practice of English language teaching (4th ed.). Harlow: Longman.Hedge, T. (2000). Teaching and learning in the language classroom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Lightbown, P., & Spada, N. (2006). How languages are learned (3rd ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Schmidt, R. (1990). The role of consciousness in second language learning. Applied Linguistics, 11(2), 129e158.Scrivener, J. (2005). Learning teaching: A guidebook for English language teachers. Oxford: MacMillan Education.

Glenn M. DavisDepartment of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China

E-mail address: gdavis@mail.tsinghua.edu.cn

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2014.08.002

(CBLT), one of the topics at the center of debate today in both academic and institutional policy contexts in the hope of

Focus on Content-based Language Teaching, Patsy M. Lightbown. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK (2014). 174 pp.

The new volume in the series Oxford Key Concepts for the Language Classroom focuses on Content-based language teaching

discovering effective teaching methods and approaches to content and language learning. The book provides both a generaland specific view of Content-based language teaching. In particular, the choice of title indicates an intention to deal with aglobal phenomenon which also has different applications at the local level. The term Content-based language teaching in-cludes all the approaches relevant to it, such as Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), Immersion Education,Submersion, Sheltered Content Instruction and Bilingual Education. More specifically, the author's decision to use the wordteaching rather than instruction indicates broader attention to the concept from a pedagogic point of view as opposed to themore restrictive one implicit in the term instruction.

The book examines contexts in which academic subjects are taught in a language different from that of the learners; theother language can refer to a second language or a foreign language. It is aimed at teachers of students from 5 to 18 years of