ABSTRACT
The rapid increase in the quantity of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) research in the late 1960s and early 1970s took place during a generally conservative era in language teaching. In most quarters, teaching materials and classroom methodology were still based largely on a combination of structuralist contrastive analyses of the first language (L1) and second language (L2) and neo-behaviourist learning theory. Several theorists have claimed that inter-language (IL) development in instructed classroom learners does not differ significantly from that in learners acquiring an SL naturalistically. Several early investigations of instructed accuracy orders were morpheme studies conducted in the 1970s, some in second and some in foreign language environments. Accordingly, some writers on language teaching have advocated provision of 'natural' language learning experiences for classroom learners. Sheltered subject-matter teaching has more recently been seized upon in many parts of the USA as a viable alternative to bilingual education for minority-language children.
