APPLIED LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE LEARNING/TEACHING

1. Introduction
Linguists and applied linguists typically look in opposite directions,
with language change as the linguistic agenda driving the linguist in
search of evidence regarding linguistic theory, while the applied linguist
is motivated by the providing of more efficient means of communication
in the society we live in.
There is a view, held by some linguists and applied linguists, that
language teaching and language-teacher education are the only proper
concerns of applied linguistics.
The methodology used by the applied linguist in operating on a
problem and to that end it take as examples four areas of importance in
language teaching, second language acquisition, proficiency language
testing, the teaching of languages for specific purposes and curriculum
design.
2. Claims
In spite of the widening range of activities undertaken by applied
linguistics and in spite of the general agreement about the reach of its
provenance claimed in the Statutes of the International Association of
Applied Linguistics:
The associations purpose is to promote research in the areas of
applied linguistics, for example language learning, language teaching,
language use and language planning, to publish the results of this
research and to promote international and interdisciplinary cooperation in
these areas. (Article 2 of the AILA Statutes 1964).
And proudly asserted in Kaplan and Widdowson (1992):
The application of linguistic knowledge to real-world problem
whenever knowledge about language is used to solve a basic languagerelated problem, we may say that applied linguistics is being practiced.
Applied is a technology which makes abstract ideas and research findings
accessible and relevant to the real world it mediates between theory and
practice. (ibid: 76).

In Crystal (1992: 24), also opting for the more inclusive approach:
The use of linguistics theories, methods and findings in educating
and solving problems to do with language which have arisen in other
areas of experience. The domain of applied linguistics is extremely wide
and includes foreign language learning and teaching, lexicography, style,
forensic speech analysis and the theory of reading.
And Wilkins(1994: 162):
The study of the uses that man makes of the language endowment and
of the problems that he encounters in doing so is the subject matter of
applied linguistics.
And unquestioningly in Cook and Kasper(2005) introducing the Applied
Linguistics special issue Applied Linguistics and Real-World Issues, in which
they took for granted the gradual move of applied linguistics enquiry in
recent years into a variety of new areas and commented that the five
contributions in special issue all:
Testify to the widening scope, and exemplify how far both the discipline
and the journal have moved beyond an earlier almost exclusive concern with
only one real-world problem, how best to teach and learn languages. (Cook
and Kasper 2005: 479).
Three remain the cautionary voices concerned to restrict its scope so
that it does not appear that applied linguistics claims to be a theory of
everything! For example:
The majority of work in applied linguistics has been directly concerned with
language teaching and learning. (Strevens 1994:81).
And Wilkins again (1994):
The field which has so far generated the greatest body of research and
publication, namely that of language learning and teaching. (ibid: 163).
And again:
In practice applied linguistics has developed so far as an enterprise
principally dedicated to creating a better understanding of the process of
language, especially second language learning. ( ibid: 164).
A position he welcomes on the grounds that otherwise: in its widest
sense no coherent field of applied linguistics exists (ibid: 163).
3. A Personal Account

Alice Kaplans 1993 evocative account of her own love story with learning
and teaching French remind us that not all language learning is doomed
(see also Lee 1995, discussed in Chapter 8). Kaplan is blunt about the
difficult task of being a language teacher: Language teachers are always
in search of the foolproof method that will work for any living language
and will make people perfectly at home in their acquired tongue (ibid:
130).
Kaplan has gone beyond the lure of method having seen its infinite
regress:
I was told the story of language teaching when I was learning to become
a teacher. Once upon the time, the story goes, all languages were taught
like Greek and latin. Learning was based on grammar rules and
translation. You talked in your own language about the dead language
you saw written down. Then in the late nineteenth century came the
Direct Method, the ancestor of Berlitz. ` left up to native speakers for
whom it is stupidly thought to be natural therefore too easy to be of
much value. PhDs want to move on from language teaching to the
teaching of literature, and theories of literature. Language teaching is too
elemental, too bare. You burn out, generating all that excitement about
repetition, creating trust, listening, always listening. In literature class
you can lean back in the seat and let the book speak for itself. In
language class you are constantly moving, chasing after sound. (Kaplan
1993: 139).
The history of language teaching is, indeed, the history of method. Like
fashion in dress/clothes, method in language teaching emerges and
disappears, and if one looks far enough it recycles itself after a decent
interval. As staleness is to fashion so is failure to method. Since reliance on
method alone must of necessity lead to failure, it is inevitable that all
methods will be challenged by new or revived alternatives. As Kaplan
recognizes in the comment already quoted: language teachers are always in
search of the foolproof method (ibid: 130)