ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at three examples from language education. The first refers to a highly respected piece of teaching material, first published in 1987 and subsequently in two further editions, 1993 and 1996 – Focus on First Certificate. The second is an extract from a real English class, given as part of a course for intending students of a variety of subjects at a British university English as Foreign Language (EFL) unit. The third is a stream-of-consciousness record of a learner of Greek practising a writing assignment. In each case, the commentary highlights some of the intriguing questions that each extract suggests about the language teaching/learning process, which applied linguistics has either researched or might be expected to come up with some answers for. The chapter also traces some of the history of the research involvement with second language acquisition (SLA).
