Applied Linguistics and Language Teacher Education by Nat Bartels

146 RELEVANCE OF KNOWLDGE OF SLASLA research. Without addressing implications for application, SLA researchers, forPeiling, were more like “examiners” who analyzed the result of teachers’ teaching ratherthan “helpers” who could provide useful information to teachers (Interview, 11-20-01).Disintegration of Past, Present, and FuturePrior experiences and personal beliefs and expectations were a powerful source forlearning-to-teach (Kagan, 1993) that helped Peiling create ways of thinking aboutunderstanding and interpreting SLA. There were also sites/sources for ambiguity,inconsistency, and messiness, which often brought contradictory viewpoints and put herin an ambivalent position, as shown in this study.Peiling’s comment that “there is no connection [in class] to me as a former [EFL]student and teacher” (Interview, 03-23-02) crystallized her sense of alienation due to thedisintegration of her previous learning and teaching experiences as they came intocontact with the current knowledge in SLA. The in-depth classroom observation seemedto suggest that the format (lecture-based) and the focus (research and theory-based) ofthe course did not allow her voices, struggles, issues, and problems derived from thecontradictory viewpoints and the ambivalent positions to be heard, discussed, validated,or resolved in the SLA course.For example, the instructor devoted most of the class time to demonstrating howcertain linguistic features (e.g., yes/no question formation, negation, relative clauses etc.)were acquired by different groups of L2 learners (classroom observations, from 08-30-01 to 12-11-01). Peiling questioned the validity of L2 acquisition based on her EFLbackground and said,[I didn’t go through the sequence] because I learned the rules first and most of the time Ididn’t make such mistakes [in] those examples. I don’t know. It seems not so bad tolearn such rules first. (Interview, 09-20-02)However, she never thought that her questioning was valid and was worth bringing upfor further discussion in class with her peers (the majority of whom were EFL learners)in the lecture-oriented class.Should Peiling believe in the “internal order” suggested by the theory and supportedby the instructor, or should she follow her “personal practical knowledge” (Golombek,1998, p. 447) gained through years of experience as an EFL learner [and teacher?]? Inthe SLA class, unfortunately, Peiling was not encouraged, asked or given any time oropportunity to talk about what acquisition order meant to her as an experienced L2learner and teacher (Classroom observation, 08-29-02 to 12-11-01).Peiling’s instructor believed that SLA knowledge can “help each teacher to decidehow to solve certain problems and how to anticipate certain problems” becauseknowledge of SLA is “another tool for helping [teacher-learners when] makingdecisions.” As for exactly what to do with the knowledge, the instructor assumed that“it’s up to individual teachers” whose “years of practical experience” would give