Customer Reviews

Second Language Acquisition (Oxford Introduction to Language Study Series)

5 star:		(2)
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3 star:		(1)
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Rod Ellis is pretty much the guru on second language acquisition in this part of the world and usually writes some pretty heavy books on the subject. This little book, weighing in at just over 100 pages, stands in stark contrast.

As the title of the series suggests, this is an introduction only and not for people who are already well-versed in second language acquistion theory. This book was really written for those wanting a launching point to further reading or just a quick overview of the main concepts, brief historical developments and some of the terminology.

The majority of the book deals with various aspects of a learners interlanguage, taking in social, psycholinguistic and other facets. It also looks at variation between students, Universal Grammar and a few more topics. None are dealt with in to any great depth, but there is enough to give you some good insights into what you may have observed in the classroom. The discussion on developmental stages was particularly useful in this regard.

Like Pragmatics (Oxford Introductions to Language Study), this book is not a heavy read that bombards one with lashes of indecipherable terminology. Easy on the brain, it is a very good starting point for people interested in the field. Definitely recommended!

This book wasn't what I expected. It was described as a concise, easy to read intro. book, but was very technical in format. I felt like I was reading a doctoral thesis. I would reccommend it for someone who needed a quick review of SLA terms.

Second Language Acquisition provides insight into top researchers of language acquisition. This is an easy to disect and understand quick reading text.

I am always looking for classics that I can share with my students who are going back to their countries to teach English. This is certainly one that I would recommend and certainly acquiring books via Amazon is great for them once they get home.

The book was delivered according to the promised date and it was in a great condition, new and neat.