Reviewed by Anthony DeFazio, New York University

Few texts for language teachers show how theoretical linguistics can clarify language teaching practices. Vivian Cook’s work demonstrates how the complexities of language learning can be understood in the context of linguistic theory. Melinda Whong’s text, which attempts, mostly successfully, to do the same, can be added to this body of work. Most of the book is written within a mentalist/generative framework, although other approaches to language are also explored.

The book is divided into eight succinct chapters, each focusing on an aspect of language related to language teaching, and each chapter concludes with questions for analysis and reflection. The introductory chapter briefly focuses on language from generative, cognitive, functionalist perspectives, and concludes with a brief survey of language acquisition. Ch. 2 offers a fast-paced historical overview of language teaching and shows how approaches are grounded in history. This chapter is unique in its inclusion of a discussion of both structure dependency and the markedness differential hypothesis within the context of second-language teaching, topics not usually found in a chapter on pedagogy.

Ch. 3 looks at language as a biological property, with an emphasis on the Chomskyan tradition. Universal grammar (UG)-constrained development and the critical period hypothesis are discussed as is second language (L2) instruction. This chapter also references the gap between theoretical linguistics and classroom applications, and once again iterates that the aim of the text is to provide these connections.

The following two chapters explore language and communication (Ch. 4) and implications for teaching (Ch. 5). Ch. 4 touches on sociocultural, functional, and cognitive approaches to language in more detail and emphasizes that the essential differences between these approaches and the generative one is emphasis on meaning. The author also explains John Truscott and Michael Sharwood Smith’s modular on-line growth and use of language (MOGUL) framework in some detail. Ch. 5 takes as its starting point Bill Van Patten and Jessica Williams’s observations about what the theory of second language acquisition (SLA) needs to explain and unpacks each observation for the reader, drawing out implications for language teaching in the process. This chapter will prove especially useful to in- and pre-services teachers.

Ch. 6 focuses on methods and techniques often found in second-language classrooms. These include the natural approach, silent way, suggestopedia, and community language teaching. The chapter ends with a discussion on task-based teaching and the lexical approach as complementary communicative methods.

The author turns more directly toward practice in her last two chapters, presenting the reader with a lesson plan and explaining how it works from both a pedagogical and a theoretical perspective. The final chapter shows how the same topic can be used for different linguistic levels and age groups and explores how a teacher might adapt a lesson plan in this way, providing explanation for such adaptation. A helpful glossary ends the book.

Instructors looking for a text that is well-organized and that demonstrates how practice can be clarified by theory will welcome this text. Readers without any previous knowledge of formal linguistics may find the text daunting at first but the clear writing style, abundant examples, and strategic repetition of key ideas help the reader overcome any initial difficulties.