View Content #21032

Last week we noted a recent post by Sara-Elizabeth Cottrell that begins with a frank discussion of the possibly false dichotomy between learning and acquisition. This week Justin Slocum-Bailey posted a response on his blog in which he discusses a nuanced definition of unconscious learning and its implications for language acquisition: http://indwellinglanguage.com/unconscious-acquisition-classroom/. Your InterCom editor read both posts with great interest, and then I watched a Black Box episode (Black Box is a podcast series hosted by the above two teachers that connects research in second language acquisition with the practice of language teaching) that addresses the interface between explicit and implicit learning: http://musicuentos.com/2015/08/blackbox-interfac/. I have found the posts, the comments of other teachers on each post, and the discussion of the article all to be very thought-provoking, and I hope that you do, too.