Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

by Vivian Cook

The first two editions of Second Language Learning Theories were world wide best sellers, admired for their ability to show students interested in becoming language teachers the relevance of second language learning research and theory. This third edition offers a fuller discussion of
language teaching and, in particular, highlights some of the places where research contradicts standard language teaching beliefs by analyzing some standard TEFL handbooks and coursebooks from different countries. The broad framework and approach of the successful second edition have been
maintained in addition to extensive updating and revision.

Genres: Linguistics, Language, Nonfiction, Education, Teaching

272 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1991

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Vivian Cook is Emeritus Professor of Applied Linguistics at Newcastle University, UK. He is known for his work on second language acquisition, particularly for the concept of multi-competence, and has written technical textbooks and popular books on areas of linguistics ranging from intonation to first language acquisition to spelling.

Reviews

[Shunsuke Matsui · Rating 5 out of 5]

HODDER EDUCATION
Second Language Learning and Language Teaching(page 1 to 17)
-Time-6/1=100minutes
-7 word summary-language reading listening writing speaking meanings individual
-Discussion Question
According to Vivian cook, there are a lot of meanings in languages,such as that language is the center of humans. So, what is language for you?
-My answer
In my case, languages are kinds of communication tools. Especially, English, which we would acquire, is one of the most important languages for human being because English is understandable for many people and most people all over the world use English.

I strongly reccomend you to read this book because you need to understand languages and the teaching to teach English to students. How to teach English and how to learn English will be more important than now.

(I bought this book by myself because I am very interested in it, so I do not use it in other classes.)

[Diane Nagatomo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually read the 5th edition--and have gone down in my rating from before because I think for an recent edition there have been very little updates in the field, and that's a pity. I counted the references after 2010 and there were less than 30--a good number of those were articles by the author. With all the research being done in applied linguistics these days, I would have expected a lot of new information in this book. I won't be using it again as a textbook.

[Priya · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was my first time reading this book cover to cover, though I have referred to it for years. An amazing guide book for practising and aspiring ESL teachers - it does what every handbook should do - prompts you to think, offers discussion questions and presents research, without any of those prescriptive
one-size-fits-all solutions.

[Said Dhimni]

Only reas the first chapter. It was amazing.

[Emma Lindhagen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this for a course in SLA with a teaching focus. Great book! I really enjoyed the attitude it took, quite critical toward excessively normative or elitist views of language learning and teaching with an open attitude toward having a wide view of why and how people learn language and what language they learn.
Easy to read, humorous in places and with a light tone but still a lot of useful material. However, it really lacked proofreading and fact checking of the "trivia about language X" type portions.

[Ned Quevedo · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is very necessary for teachers of English everywhere to know the most outstanding problems in teaching and learning the language.

[Marisol]

Good insights and reflective materials.

[Brendan Coster · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clearly written for individuals with a degree in 2nd language teaching at the very least, if not someone specifically involved in research on 2nd language acquisition. I've read a few books on translating and languages in general... but those were all soft, soggy, in comparison to this.

So, it took me way longer then it should have to read it, had to look up a lot of terms. It ultimately left me with more questions then answers since, despite there being a number of concrete examples and experiments performed on poor unaware college students, much of the content involved a big picture of idea how every language acquisition philosophy is essentially right, but that even combined they don't complete the puzzle.

So, no, not lite reading, but in wanting to try and do the best by my own attempts to pick up reading (at least) second language I'm then interested by the process itself. I had to push through it to some extent.

And I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted out of it, but I came across a whole section on self guided acquisition practices, things that tend to work and don't and how to promote ones self interest. But it was a small portion of a larger book, but Cook did a great job of slathering her sections with further reading -- which is really important for what I was going after.

Another section had suggestions and material on promoting the inner voice in the 2nd language. Personally, if I get a japanese phrase/word stuck in my head I haven't forgotten it... but it turns out there's a whole method of teaching based on this. And ultimately, like learning in general, its kind of about finding what works best for the you, the learner. That section was also full of 'further reading'.

While a really great read, and something I'm really glad I got through as it's going to be super useful, the non-fiction reader side of me still kicked in and is forcing me to 4 star this rather then 5. Being that she goes all in on the research portion of language acquisition from the start... a lot of her examples are really off the cuff experiments on college students. Much of it didn't have any hard data to corroborate the idea being tested, and none of the sample sizes were ever very large.

To Cook's credit she does mention a few times that it's hard to say exactly "this method worked" or "this method did not" because the number of factors that goes into successfully learning a language are endless, plus there is no end to learning a second language, and, as she brings up more then once, what is a total success?

Point is, I found enough of the research to be informal, off the cuff, unsubstantiated, and of small enough sample sizes that she really didn't have podium for "a truly research based understanding of language acquisition."

Additional points off because of the title, being a Teacher of a Second language was kind of assumed by the author, there was nothing in here to show someone how to teach.

I'll fix her her title, "A Mostly Research Based Analysis of Successful Language Acquisition Philosophies and Best Practices"