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In:Interlanguage: Forty years later
Edited by ZhaoHong Han and Elaine Tarone
[Language Learning & Language Teaching 39] 2014
► pp. 105–126

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Chapter 5. The limits of instruction

40 years after “Interlanguage”

 | Michigan State University
Published online: 30 April 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/lllt.39.07ch5
This chapter argues that Selinker’s (1972) claim that instruction does not significantly affect interlanguage development is essentially correct. Reviewing general research on instructed second language acquisition as well as some recent research of my own, I argue that instructed SLA to date has failed to consider underlying constraints and processes in interlanguage development. In addition, I argue that the fundamental problem in instructed SLA is its overall focus on the acquisition of “rules”; that is, rules are not acquired from the input. Instead, learners process morpho-phonological units in the speech stream and assemble language over time. Rules, if they exist, evolve; they cannot be the object of instruction or input processing.
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Cited by (4)

Cited by four other publications

Han, ZhaoHong
2021. Corrective Feedback from Behaviorist and Innatist Perspectives. In The Cambridge Handbook of Corrective Feedback in Second Language Learning and Teaching, ► pp. 23 ff. DOI logo
GRAUS, JOHAN & PETER–ARNO COPPEN
2017. The Interface Between Student Teacher Grammar Cognitions and Learner‐Oriented Cognitions. The Modern Language Journal 101:4 ► pp. 643 ff. DOI logo
VanPatten, Bill
2016. Why Explicit Knowledge Cannot Become Implicit Knowledge. Foreign Language Annals 49:4 ► pp. 650 ff. DOI logo
Tarone, Elaine
2015. Second Language Acquisition in Applied Linguistics: 1925–2015 and beyond. Applied Linguistics 36:4 ► pp. 444 ff. DOI logo

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