L2 Teaching
Does memorizing “chunks of language” make you more fluent?
A few years ago, I went through the weaknesses of the arguments for rote memorization of vocabulary . I recently stumbled upon a slight twist on this practice: memorizing “prefabricated sequences” of language rather than just individual…
5 min readL2 Teaching · November 1, 2025DIY Master’s in Second Language Teaching: A Reading List
Teaching adults a second language, or developing a good teaching app/program, requires both a solid grounding in the “why” (theory/research) as well as the “how.” If you don’t understand the why, you have no way of knowing if the how is…
11 min readL2 Teaching · September 16, 2024Are Flashcards a Good Idea for Learning New Words?
I recently did another YouTube interview (to be posted shortly) and realized that I had forgotten to post this one (with James Stubbs) from last year.
43 min readL2 Teaching · July 26, 2024Fundamentals of Language Acquisition: Two Talks
I gave two one-hour talks to the IZ Education Centre for beginning teachers over the past six months or so. The first one reviews Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition and can be found on my YouTube channel:
1 min readL2 Teaching · April 29, 2024Interview with Matt Brooks-Green on Language Acquisition
Popular YouTuber Matt Brooks-Green interviewed me recently on some key concepts in acquiring a second language.
1 min readL2 Teaching · March 21, 2023Interviews with James Stubbs on “Future Multilingual”
James Stubbs over at Future Multilingual (YouTube channel) interviewed me recently about second language acquisition and vocabulary instruction. It was a lot of fun – thanks to James for inviting me!
1 min readL2 Teaching · April 25, 2022Interview with Álvaro from Natural Languages on Comprehensible Input
I was recently interviewed by Álvaro from Natural Languages about using comprehensible input in language teaching.
1 min readL2 Teaching · November 10, 2021How to Teach Intermediate Language Students
I gave another lecture via Skype to the IZ Language School last month (October, 2021) in Zanjan, Iran , talking about how to teach intermediate language students. Since most of the students were new to teaching (of any kind), the talk…
1 min readL1 Literacy · December 4, 2019Can Language Minority Students Acquire Academic Vocabulary from Reading?
The study examined the performance of 149 sixth-graders in a seven-week vocabulary intervention called “U.S. History for Engaged Readers.” There were both English-only (EOs) (called “English Monolinguals” in the paper) and LM students…
5 min readL2 Teaching · October 29, 2019An Early Start in English as a Foreign Language Doesn’t Help
Jeaekel and his colleagues (2017, paywall) followed two large cohorts of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students in German schools for a period of seven years. One “Early Starter” group (N=3,340) got EFL instruction beginning at age…
1 min readL2 Teaching · October 17, 2019Should Intermediate English Acquirers Read Children’s Literature?
Why is this important? Because the main source of good reading material for English beginners and low intermediates are graded readers (stories written for second language acquirers). But graded readers in English currently only take you…
7 min readError Correction · October 8, 2019Error Correction is (Still) a Waste of Time
Three groups wrote a series of three in-class essays, one per week. Two of the groups got CF on certain target structures appearing in their first essay; one group did not. In addition, one of the CF groups was also graded on the…
1 min readL2 Teaching · October 1, 2019A Reverse Turing Test: Is Good Language Teaching Robot-Proof?
The always brilliant Gene Glass provides a list of jobs that are “0% Automatable” (cannot be done by a robot) and “100% Automatable.” He uses the list to examine what schools teach and the future of our economy, but it is a question you…
1 min readAnnouncements · January 21, 2019Language and Language Teaching Special Issue Guest Edited by Stephen Krashen (Free Download)
Stephen Krashen has guest edited an issue of Language and Language Teaching (India). There are 11 great articles on topics that will interest language and reading teachers from preK to adult, for both first and second languages. You will…
1 min readL1 Literacy · October 12, 2017A Trial of Tiers: Why Silent Reading Beats Other “Tier 1” Interventions All Day Long
Swanson, E., Stevens, E. A., Scammacca, N. K., Capin, P., Stewart, A. A., & Austin, C. R. (2017). The impact of tier 1 reading instruction on reading outcomes for students in Grades 4–12: A meta-analysis. Reading and Writing , 30 (8),…
5 min readL2 Teaching · June 28, 2017College ESL Students “Don’t Have Time” to Read in English, Researchers Claim
For the past decade, we have been witnessing a heated debate between the advocates of ‘vocabulary-through-input’ position and the proponents of word-focused instruction. The most recent example is the discussion between Cobb, Nation, and…
3 min readL2 Teaching · June 22, 2017Converging Evidence on Vocabulary Acquisition: Another Look at Reynolds (2016)
Nation analyzed a series of adult-level English novels and concluded that if (a) an ESL reader reads texts in which 2% of the words are unknown (that is, he knows the meaning of 98% of the words on the page), and (b) words are acquired…
4 min readL2 Teaching · June 8, 2017The IBM Computer Cloud of Unknowing
This press release is making the rounds this week, announcing a collaboration between Sesame Street and the letters I, B, and M. Big Bird and Big Blue are teaming up to do “learning in the cloud” with Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings Watson…
1 min readL2 Teaching · June 7, 2017The Existential Fallacy: If It Exists, It Must Be Taught
I stumbled across the following observation this morning from a 1983 technical report on reading comprehension by David Pearson and Margaret Gallagher:
2 min readL2 Teaching · June 2, 2017Forced “Pleasure Reading” May Get You Neither
Back in the 1980s, I spent my first year out of college working as a clerk in small clothing company (I majored in ancient history). There was a sign in the break room meant to provide a little humor to the employees’ day: “The Beatings…
4 min readL2 Teaching · April 26, 2017Rakuten, Japan’s 21st Century Online Powerhouse, to Launch 19th Century Language School
One of the leading online retailers in Japan, Rakuten , is getting into the English-teaching business. According to their press release, their “ Super English ” lessons will use software developed by a new startup in the language teaching…
3 min readL2 Teaching · April 15, 2017How to Eliminate Second Language Reading Anxiety (Without Drugs or Alcohol)
I think a better way of addressing this issue is to consider that reading anxiety is a result of attempting to read a text that is too hard for you. The key variable, then, is the relative difficulty of the text for the reader. This is…
2 min readL2 Teaching · August 12, 2015Et tu, Wimpy Kid? What Teachers Get About Language Teaching that College Professors Don’t
There was an article on translating the first book of the popular Wimpy Kid series into Latin in today’s Wall Street Journal . The reporter interviewed a Latin teacher, the book’s publisher, and a college professor of classical languages.
1 min readL2 Teaching · February 10, 2012The Most Studied, Fastest Growing, and “Best Represented” Languages in U.S. Colleges
A recent post by Brad Peterson on the supposed popularity of Chinese language study around the world sent me digging for some data on the whole question of what foreign/modern languages are popular in U.S. schools and, well, what we mean…
4 min readL2 Teaching · January 21, 2012Rosetta Stone and “Falling out of Favor”: Claims without Empirical Support
I comment on two statements in K. Nielson’s paper, “Self-study with language learning software in the workplace: What happens?” published in Language Learning and Technology , 2011, 15 (3): 110-129.
2 min readL2 Teaching · January 13, 2012And Then There Were None: Surviving Foreign Language Study
Almost no one who studies a foreign language in the United States gets very far. Millions of high school and college students show up to their Spanish or Chinese I classes in the hopes of learning to communicate in a foreign language, but…
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