Although the research literature on Second Language Acquisition (SLA) has increased exponentially over the last few decades, it is not at all clear how its findings may or may not contribute to teacher growth or otherwise influence actual classroom praxis. The case study presented here shows one instructor, a native speaker of German, translating theory into practice in a beginning German as a foreign language college classroom. The theory employed in this case concerns corrective feedback in oral production, and the format follows an action research model. We note the instructor's initial treatment of spoken classroom errors, then his reaction to research articles on oral corrective feedback encountered in a pedagogy seminar, and finally how he implements those ideas in an action plan of his own design, for his subsequent teaching. Throughout the process, we find a series of cultural and conceptual filters at work that influence the reading of the research, the selection of ideas for the action research plan, and the way those ideas appear and mutate in actual classroom use. The study suggests (a) that the act of reflection itself, in tandem with the results and suggestions of the literature, produces change; and (b) that an emic view of classroom actions and reactions, where the instructor interprets his behaviors in light of a theoretical framework, is a critical component of classroom analysis. Freeman (1996), for one, is skeptical:
DOES READING THE RESEARCH ON TEACHing and learning actually affect what teachers do?Over the years, the dominant conception of the relationship between research and classroom practice has been one of implied transmission. There has been an entrenched, hierarchical, and unidirectional assumption that interpretations developed and explanations posited through research can-and shouldinfluence in some way what teachers understand, and therefore what they do, in their classroom practice. Yet, as we know, this does not happen. (p. 89) His assessment of the research-classroom interface raises a number of questions, not the least of which is whether one should assume a relationship at all between second language acquisition The Modern Language Journal, 90, iii, (2006) 0026-7902/06/353-372 $1.50/0 C 2006 The Modern Language Journal(SLA) research and foreign language (FL) teaching. There are those, as Gass (1995) noted, who suggest that classroom concerns should not dictate the pursuits of SLA research or determine its goals. Yet most people in the profession, Gass among them, disagree, arguing that SLA research necessarily relates to pedagogy in significant ways to name only a few). The present study shares this conviction. It seeks to investigate the connection between research and praxis by tracing an actual path from the research journal to the classroom, focusing on a particular teacher in a particular classroom setting (beginning FL German). It looks not at research in general, but at the deliberately selected SLA debate on oral corrective feedback in the FL classroom. It asks this re...