Second Language Learning and Language Teaching

This textbook connects research on how people acquire a second language with the practical work of teaching one. It requires no prior knowledge of either field. The opening chapters establish the central questions of second language acquisition research before the book turns to specific areas of learning, including grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and writing systems. It also considers the strategies learners use and the ways individual learners differ from one another.

The later chapters step back to consider second language learning in a wider frame, asking what language teaching is meant to achieve and how established teaching methods relate to what research has found. This fifth edition retains the broad coverage of earlier versions and adds newer developments in the field, with particular attention to multilingual approaches to teaching.

The author, Vivian Cook, is known for developing the idea of multi-competence and for her work on the L2 user, a second language speaker viewed in their own right rather than as an imperfect native speaker.