Review

Reviewed Work(s): Language Teaching Research & Language Pedagogy/ by Rod Ellis

Review by: Ageno Abera

Source: Rod Ellis. Language Teaching Research & Language Pedagogy

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Publication includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-4443-3610-8 (cloth): ISBN 978-1-4443-3611-5 (pbk.)

Review of Rod Ellis book entitled Language Teaching Research and Language Pedagogy

This Review is done for the purpose of term paper in Post Graduate Program course called
Academic Reading and Writing (TEFL 605).

Rod Ellis book includes preface, introductions and conclusions in each chapter and discusses
second language classroom research to provide useful skills that enables teachers to conduct
research and to improve their teaching methods through conducting research. The book provides
teachers and researchers with ‘technical’ knowledge and how that knowledge can be used in
actual teaching or in teacher education programs is a matter for debate. Ellis concluded the book
in the unit eleven by discussing about the whole work and defines main points in each topic and
provides important points about language teaching research and language pedagogy. It also
suggests importance of instruction and provides learners information related with second
language learning in the actual classroom interactions. Rod Ellis presents language teaching
research and language pedagogy in two areas as theoretical and methodological aspects.

The chapter one introduces Developments of Language Teaching and concludes the book, in last
unit of this book, with a discussion of ways in which the language teaching research reviewed to
inform language teaching.

Chapter two talks about Methods of researching the second language classroom and mainly
describes the different research paradigms. Both chapters include main topics and sub-topics that
support chapter. Mainly they talks about language teaching research, comparative method
studies, and second language classroom discourse, focus on the teacher and students,
investigating tasks, interaction and second language acquisition, and classroom research, form
focused instruction, practitioner research, action research, exploratory practice, main research
traditions, confirmatory research and descriptive research.

Chapter three shows that comparative method studies have not dried up despite the rejection of
‘method’ as a useful construct for investigating language teaching and it discusses comparative
methods studies, comparisons of the audiolingual and communicative approaches including
subtopics like early comparative method studies, large scale comparative methods studies in the
1960s, comparative studies investigating super-learning, comparative studies investigating
comprehension-based language teaching, comparative studies investigating communicative
approach.

Chapter four up to six emphasized on studies of classroom discourse, Focus on the Teacher,
Focus on the Learner, Investigations of discourse frameworks and language use and presents
review with examples and teacher-directed classroom discourse research which includes
characteristics of teacher-talk, teacher questions, use of learners’ mother tongue, use of meta-
language, and corrective feedback that provide teachers new classroom discourse analysis. As
whole in chapter four Ellis presents approach to investigating second language classroom
discourse, starting with the early interactional analysis systems which examine classroom talk in
terms of discrete categories, moving on to different approaches to describing the structure of
classroom communication and concluding with approaches based on theoretical views of
language learning. Chapter five has been to examine research that has focused narrowly on the
teacher. It has attempted to answers two key questions that are what do teachers say and do when
they teach an L2?, why do they do it? The book answers the first question focusing on a number
of general and more specific aspects of teacher-talk and examined the beliefs that teachers hold
about these different aspects and the extent to which these beliefs inform their practice of
teaching. Chapter six describes that the L2 classroom should never be treated as monolithic in
nature and there is a danger in some of the research of viewing it this way.

Chapter seven discussion is about studies of task-based language teaching (TBLT) expressing the
definitions for task versus activity, discussion of design and implementation variables, and
explanation of evaluative measure and it also includes the setting, input-based tasks, learner-
learner interaction, task complexity, production based tasks, planning, form-focused tasks, focus-
on-form tasks, and evaluation of tasks.

Chapter eight develops about Interaction and L2 learning in the classroom research and has sub-
topics such are ‘development’ versus ‘acquisition’, sociocultural studies of classroom interaction
and L2 learning, interactionist-cognitive studies of classroom interaction and L2 acquisition. It
has also focuses on research that has investigated tasks from the perspective of how they are
performed in language classrooms has drawn on two very different theoretical perspectives.
Socio-cultural theory emphasizes interaction as a site where learning takes place. It emphasizes
acquisition-as-participation.

Chapter nine and ten reviews research on form-focused instruction and focus on form versus
focus on forms. Form-focused instruction study differs from focus on form versus focus on
forms in their range, instructional targets, implementation, and measures of effects that it is
difficult to make generalizations about the research. Implicit versus explicit instruction, an
options-based approach, early FFI research: the effects of instruction on L2 acquisition,
consciousness-raising performance-based instruction some outstanding issues.

Chapter ten examines research that has investigated how different learner factors mediate the
effects of instruction and Ellis concludes the chapter with a brief look at attempts to enhance
learners’ ability to benefit from instruction through learner training and explains how they
interact with particular instructional techniques. Ellis recognizes that teachers have a limited
ability to apply the findings of such research to a heterogeneous group of students; he also
explores research on strategy training.

The last chapter of the book raises a number of key methodological issues and examines the
relationship between research and teaching. Finally, Ellis offers a set of guidelines for teachers to
apply the research to their teaching. The book is difficult to understand without prior knowledge
of L2 acquisition research though its terms are defined. It summarizes the results of studies and
its topics are organized well sequentially. It discusses topics and ideas way they support
language teachers in their teaching study.