How Languages are Learned

Patsy M. Lightbown is Distinguished Professor Emerita, Applied Linguistics, at Concordia University, Montreal. For more than thirty-five years, she has studied how different types of input and instruction affect second-language acquisition, especially in classrooms where the emphasis is on 'communicative' or 'content-based' language teaching. The contexts for her research have included the teaching of English to French-speaking students in Canada as well as dual or 'two-way' immersion classes in the U.S. Her forthcoming book Focus on Content-Based Language Teaching will appear in the Oxford Key Concepts for the Language Classroom series, which she is co-editing with Nina Spada.