Relevance of Knowledge of Second Language Acquisition:
FINDINGS
Theme One: Mismatch of Theoretical Orientations
The table in the “RELEVANCE OF KNOWLEDGE OF SLA” Appendix contrasts the underlying beliefs of the instructor and those of Peiling. Based on a comparison and analysis of the beliefs, the fundamental difference leading to the theoretical mismatch between the instructor and Peiling was that the instructor believed that, in reality, researchers and teachers belonged to two communities (Clarke, 1994) because “it [the SLA field] gets kind of separated” (Interview with the instructor, 10-13-01). SLA researchers’ (as opposed to pedagogical researchers’) job and their major interests, in her opinion, were to document what people do when they learn languages, make sense of the data, and test theory rather than to apply ideas to classroom situations. SLA was a course for addressing theory.
On the contrary, Peiling believed researchers and teachers should belong to one supportive community. For Peiling, “researchers are [a] kind of help for teachers. Researchers should provide more information about teaching and learning to teachers” (Interview, 11-20-01). She believed that theory and practice were like two facets of one coin that cannot be separated. For Peiling, theory without practice was useless and meaningless, and therefore theory should entail the notion of practice. She came to her SLA course expecting that this course would be helpful for her teaching in the future (Interview, 01-09-02).
Analysis of data suggests that the theoretical orientation of the instructor influenced, to a large extent, how she designed and delivered the course and what she expected teacher-learners to do with the SLA knowledge after taking the course. By the same token, Peiling’s theoretical orientation determined the kind of approaches, methods, and materials she preferred to see in the SLA course and what she expected to learn from the course. Peiling’s need for a different way of approaching reading materials and desire for a different kind of reading materials reflected the mismatch.
