ABSTRACT
Teachers guides – also known as methodology texts – often constitute the core reference text on teacher education courses, and therefore play an important role, arguably, in the construction of teachers’ practical knowledge. In the past, such texts have been criticised for lacking sufficient academic probity and for pursuing the writer’s own particular methodological agenda. Accordingly, this study investigates the extent to which the writers of such texts draw on the research bases that inform second language acquisition (SLA) theory and other related disciplines. Four prominent methodology writers responded to open questions regarding their role as ‘mediators’ across the research-practice divide. While there is considerable individual variation in terms of the extent to which they feel that SLA research is relevant to classroom practice, all four acknowledge the role that their practical teaching and training experience serves in ‘filtering’ any findings in accordance with their own ‘sense of plausibility’. Moreover, in attempting to represent a range of points of view, their approach is non-prescriptive and eclectic, written in a style appropriate to a pedagogic rather than a research-based genre. This study concludes that, by speaking to classroom practitioners in this ‘demotic’ way, and with a deliberate practical bias, these texts serve to leverage inexpert teachers into the target discourse community, easing the transition from novice to expert by equipping them with the means to ‘rename’ their classroom experience and thereby make sense of it.
