One of the things methods in second language (SL) research and teaching have in common is that they are elusive to the question, “What is best?” The best teaching method is the one that produces the best learning outcomes, and the best research, the one that is most capable of fulfilling a given research purpose. In both cases, the reply to the optimal method question thus depends on the specific teaching/research goal and a range of contextual factors.

Recent SLA theory development, supported by related developments in cognitive psychology, has made the study of SL speech production, hitherto neglected, a promising area of work. Recent developments in L1 production studies have provided a gradually strengthening foundation for investigations of L2 production with both use and acquisitional concerns. This article briefly sketches the current first language position as a necessary preliminary to a critical discussion of recent SL production research with particular regard to methodology.

The article first calls attention to research on learner strategies and to the significant role that verbal report data have played in such research. While various research methods have been used to describe such strategies, verbal report measures are being used more and more as a means for describing cognitive processes in such areas as communicating, translating, test taking, and language learning. The article focuses just on the use of verbal report in describing learner strategies in language learning and language using. It is noted that information on learner strategies has evolved from partially intuited lists of strategies to empirically derived taxonomies that have as their ultimate purpose that of training learners to be more successful at language learning. Second, the controversy regarding the use of verbal report measures is discussed. Finally, the article describes a study that employed a variety of verbal report measures in an effort to understand better the strategies that teachers use in giving feedback on compositions and the strategies that learners use in handling this feedback in the English-foreign-languge and Portuguese-native-language classrooms, respectively.

This article takes a critical look at grammaticality judgment tasks in second language acquisition research. It begins by examining the theoretical assumptions that underlie grammaticality judgment tasks, pointing out that previous studies have reported considerable differences between the results obtained from grammaticality judgment tasks and from other, production-oriented tasks. A description of the design features of grammaticality judgment tasks that have been used to date is then provided. There follows an account of a small-scale study designed to investigate the nature of learner judgments. Twenty-one adult advanced Chinese learners of English were asked to judge sentences designed to test their knowledge of dative alternation. The results indicated that the learners rarely used the “not sure” option in the test. Eight of these subjects were then administered a reduced version of the original test as a think-aloud task 1 week later. The results showed that these learners were inconsistent in 22.5% of their judgments. The think-aloud protocols showed that they resorted to a variety of strategies in making judgments. The article concludes by arguing that grammaticality judgment tasks elicit a particular kind of performance that needs to be understood much more thoroughly before it is used as a basis for investigating second language acquisition.

Subjective theories are very complex cognitive structures: they are highly individual, relatively stable, and relatively enduring. Examples are learners' and teachers' general beliefs about language, and about learning and teaching. In psychology and educational science it has been demonstrated that subjective theories are an important tool for the explanation and prediction of human action and thinking, and a special methodology for their analysis has been developed. It is characteristic of this methodology that it is based on both hermeneutics and empiricism, which are integrated into a coherent framework. In the present article, it is argued that the concept of subjective theory and the corresponding methodology have a considerable potential for second language research. The methodology is discussed at some length, and its application to second language research is shown.

The article reviews the methods of data collection employed in 39 studies of interlanguage pragmatics, defined narrowly as the investigation of nonnative speakers' comprehension and production of speech acts, and the acquisition of L2-related speech act knowledge. Data collection instruments are distinguished according to the degree to which they constrain informants' responses, and whether they tap speech act perception/comprehension or production. A main focus of discussion is the validity of different types of data, in particular, their adequacy to approximate authentic performance of linguistic action.

In this article, the current state of second language classroom-oriented research is subjected to critical review. The article begins by providing a brief overview of aims and issues in classroom-oriented research, before focusing more specifically on methodological issues in research. The review is based on an analysis of 50 empirical investigations of teaching and learning. These studies are analyzed in terms of their rationale, the environment in which they were carried out, the design and method of data collection, and the type of analysis carried out on the data. In the final part of the article, the implications of the study for future classroom research are presented and discussed.

This article is broadly concerned with the differences between individual language learners. In terms of particular content areas of Individual Differences (ID) research, it surveys developments in foreign language aptitude, motivation, learner strategies, and learner styles. A brief review of earlier research on aptitude is presented, followed by discussions of more contemporary work on the origin of aptitude, namely, as a residue of first language learning ability, and on the existence of evidence for “learner types.” Motivation research is reviewed partly with regard to Robert Gardner's research, and then in terms of a wider framework for the functioning of motivation within an educational context. The review of learner strategies research emphasizes current attempts to develop taxonomies of such strategies, and to investigate their theoretical basis and their trainability. Finally, learner styles research, drawing on field independence theory, is discussed, and links are made with the research on aptitude. The article finishes with sections on conceptual and methodological issues in ID research.