An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching

Theorists and practitioners in our profession often seem to live in different worlds. Books that bridge the gap, such as those by Harmer (2001), Cook (2008), or Macaro (2003), consequently perform a valuable function and are deservedly popular. Keith Johnson’s An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching is one of these. The first edition, published in 2001, ‘has enjoyed some success’, its author claims modestly, ‘among those preparing to become teachers, following degree or training courses at tertiary institutions’ (p. xi). It has indeed, and this new edition is very welcome. Johnson’s book is divided into three sections. The first, ‘Background’, starts with an introductory discussion of reasons for learning in a multilingual world and a look at different types of learners and methods. This is followed by an important overview of ‘what there is to learn’: that is to say, the basic information that a language teacher needs about the forms of language and about the various skills and competences involved in language use. This incorporates a lucid and valuable note of the role of the mother tongue and the linguistic information that this can provide—or fail to provide—in support of the acquisition of a new language. (Somewhat surprisingly, though, Johnson does not adopt this perspective in his later chapter on skills learning. Here, he treats the learner as a blank slate who, whatever his or her L1 competence, has to learn reading skills, for example, all over again.) The section continues with a survey (which Johnson relates most interestingly to the ‘central conflict’ in human thought between mentalism and empiricism) of changing views of language and language learning, culminating in the ‘sociolinguistic revolution’ of the 1970s.