‘Teacher trainers and educators don’t tell pre-service or practicing teachers about the research findings on interlanguage development.’ Instructed-SLA research favours implicit, meaning-focused learning over the presentation and practice of pre-selected items, so PPP coursebook teaching persists against the evidence.
Claim
CELTA-type courses and influential trainers (Ur, Harmer, Dellar & Walkley) teach PPP and coursebook-driven ELT without examining whether it works.
Research cited
Doughty (2003) “Instructed SLA” in Doughty & Long (eds) Handbook of SLA; Whong, Gil & Marsden (2014) SLR 30(4); Bryfonski & McKay (2017) TBLT meta-analysis, LTR; Long (2015) SLA and TBLT; Corder (1967), Selinker (1972), Long (1983).
What he proposes
- Teach SLA findings early (his sketch: ~15% of a course on how people learn an L2), then approaches, the language, management, syllabus design.
- Meaning-first teaching: comprehensible input, participation, feedback. TBLT as the alternative.
- Five questions for trainers, e.g. “What is your view of the English language?” “What types of syllabus do you discuss?”
Counter-arguments (comments)
- Heyman: teachers know the theory but lack workable ways to implement TBLT; the coursebook is the path of least resistance.
- McCutcheon: pre-service trainees lack the language expertise for good focus on form, so they end up with “a bastardised version” of TBLT.
- Exam washback and institutional constraints aren’t addressed (Claude).
Apply in my context (Claude)
- Jordan’s position is the strong version of Teach grammar in processability order (Pienemann) and The illusion of learning - correct answers are not acquisition. Hold it as a critical lens on the Prepare ladder rather than a reason to drop it: Prepare is a structural syllabus, so add meaning-focused tasks and recycling around it.
- For DELTA M3, his framing gives a sharp rationale section.
Connections
Research mediators vs craft knowledge - the Penny Ur debate · Long’s TBLT as the alternative to coursebook PPP · Grammar should be taught through lexis, not PPP rules (Dellar, whom Jordan also attacks)