A Response to Lightbown's (2000) 'Anniversary Article: Classroom SLA Research and Second Language Teaching'
Applied Linguistics, (2002)Abstract
This response contends that Lightbown (2000) manifests a misconception of the relationship between applied linguistics-SLA and language teaching. It does so, first, by failing to see the direct causal link between the field and the pre- 1985 developments in language teaching, second, by failing to address the largely unrecognized failure of the field to bring about improvement in language teaching, third, by uncritically accepting published advocacies and fourth, by implicitly proposing that the future should entail more of what has largely failed in the past. The response then proposes that given the past history of failure, the field would do well to direct some of its resources to alternatives.