How Languages Are Learned (Oxford Handbooks for Language Teachers)

I decided to buy this book because I am going to be teaching English in Korea. I was pretty new to the language learning field, so I wasn't sure what to expect. This book did provide good insight into how langauges are learned (both first and second), the interplay between first and second language, ages at which languages are best learned, and a bit about how students learn in different ways. Overall the book gave a nice introduction into the major topics of how languages are picked up.

The book was delivered according to the promised date and it was in a great condition, new and neat.

I'm having difficulty with linguistics and language study since these disciplines, like others (psych), accidentally remove the human from human behavior. So far, those, this text has enough writings from linguists who speak of humans with humanity. Still, I didn't chose this text so I'm not likely a good reviewer of it.

I am an MA student at University of Massachusetts Boston. I had to read H. Douglas Brown's Principles of Language Learning and Teaching for my class but I didn't completely understand after reading his book. I then spent some time reading this book How Languages are Learned by Patsy Lightbown, and I understand completely. It cleared up my frustrations. I highly recommended it to anybody who needs a little references before the more advanced book.

This book gives an excellent overview of the way in which humans learn language--both their native language (L1) and subsequent languages (L2, L3, etc). Not only does it give an excellent introduction to each of the areas of language acquisition, it serves as a springboard to further research, with an outstanding and very recent bibliography. Recommended for methods classes, but specifically meant for self-study.