The Cambridge Introduction to Applied Linguistics

You step into a language classroom as the teacher. You have been teaching this class of adult students for six months. You greet the students and begin class. What kinds of activities do the students do in class: extensive reading, listening, and responding to the teacher, scripted conversations, or information exchange activities? When planning your lessons, do you plan specific, explicit instruction on grammar or vocabulary, or are the structures and vocabulary presented implicitly in context only? When the students make a mistake, as they inevitably will, did this error come from their first language or somewhere else? How do you motivate students or encourage quiet students to use the language? These are just some of the questions that language teachers face every day.