Patsy M. Lightbown is Distinguished Professor Emerita at Concordia University in Montreal and Past President of the American Association for Applied Linguistics. Her research focuses on how instruction and feedback affect second-language acquisition in classrooms where the emphasis is on communicative or content-based language teaching. The contexts for her work have included elementary schools in Canada and, more recently, dual-language bilingual classes in the U.S. Nina Spada is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the Modern Language Centre, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, Canada. Her main areas of professional interest are second language acquisition, classroom research in L2 teaching and learning, and English as a Second Language.
How Languages Are Learned, 4th edn. P. Lightbown & N. Spada. (2013) Oxford U. Press. ISBN 978-0-19-454126-8; 256pp+. This edition of the standard introductory work on this subject is over 20 pp. longer than the 3rd edition. A strong feature of this admirable book is its concise, clear summaries of important research findings. The chapters are; Language learning in early childhood, Second language learning (SLL), Individual differences in SLL, Explaining SLL, Observing learning and teaching in the SL classroom, SLL in the classroom, and Popular ideas about language learning revisited. Extra activities, study questions, and videos are available online at www.oup.com/elt/teacher/hlal * The Teacher Trainer Journal, Vol 29/3 *