[(Form Focused Instruction and Second Language Learning)] [Author: Rod Ellis] published on

by Rod Ellis

How does classroom language learning take place? How does an understanding of second language acquisition contribute to language teaching? In answering these questions, Rod Ellis reviews a wide range of research on classroom learning, developing a theory of instructed second language acquisition that has significant implications for language teaching.The early chapters of this book trace the attempts to explain classroom language learning in terms of general theory of learning (behaviorism) and the study of naturalistic language learning. The middle chapters document the attempts of researchers to enter the black box of the classroom in order to describe the teaching-learning behaviors that take place there and to investigate to what extent and in what ways instruction results in acquisition.The book concludes with a theory of classroom language learning. This theory advances an explanation of the relationship between explicit and implicit linguistic knowledge and in so doing accounts for how both form-focused and meaning-focused instruction contribute to second language acquisition in the classroom.

Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Professor Rod Ellis is Professor in the Department of Applied Language Studies and Linguistics at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He has worked in Zambia, the UK, Japan, and the U.S.A for extended periods. He has published a number of books on second language acquisition and teacher education. He has also published EFL/ESL textbooks. His main interest lies in the application of second language theory and research to language teaching.

He is co-author of Analysing Learner Language, and author of Second Language Acquisition, SLA Research and Language Teaching, The Study of Language Acquisition, which won the English Speaking Union's Duke of Edinburgh Book Competition, Understanding Second Language Acquisition, which won the BAAL Book Prize, and Task-based Language Learning and Teaching, all published by Oxford University Press.