In Foreign and Second Language Learning, William Littlewood surveys
recent research into how people acquire languages and considers its
relevance for language teaching. He describes the most important studies
and ideas about first language acquisition, and how these have
influenced and developed into studies of second language acquisition. He
considers the background of language theories which were current before
the present interest in acquisition research, and looks at factors such
as learners' errors, whether learners are predisposed to acquire
language in certain sequences, why some people are apparently more
successful at learning languages than others, and how learners make use
of their new language to communicate. The use of clear examples, the
careful explanation and balanced commentary on the research enable the
reader to evaluate the evidence and consider the relevance of work in
this field to the day to day concerns of teaching and learning
languages.