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导读、读后感、翻译：武太白
背景音乐：Yanni - Truth of Touch 新尝试，不喜欢的话可以点击停止
导读
本文选自美国著名语言教育家斯蒂芬·克拉申（Stephen D. Krashen）的著作《第二语言习得的原则与实践（Principles and Practice of SLA）》，探讨的是一个时期以来外语教学中理论与实践的脱节：因为理论未经实战检验（not field tested）和课程、教材调制（modulated by curriculum and materials）就投入实际教学，所以难以取得成功，导致教师认为理论投入实践遭到失败的原因在于他们的运用不当，逐渐对理论敬而远之。能读懂原文的朋友就耐心读一读原文吧，克拉申的文字还是比较流畅浅近的。（分享在最后，请耐心读完）
原文
In reality, many researchers are no longer involved in language teaching and language acquisition, and do not interact with teachers. There is also far too little interaction between theoretical and applied research; those who search for the best method are often too little concerned with the underlying theory. What is perhaps most evident is that teachers and materials developers pay little attention to research and theorizing of any sort.
There is good reason for this lack of interaction, especially the failure of researchers and teachers to interact. The reasons for this lack of communication do not stem from any anti-intellectualism on the part of teachers. They stem, rather, from the failure of research to supply relevant input in the past, combined with the insistence on the part of theoreticians that their insights were the only legitimate determinant of teacher behavior and materials construction. In other words, we have, in the past, gone straight from theory to practice, and it simply has not worked.
Some well-known examples of this approach include the direct application of the principles of behaviorist psychology in the classroom, known as the audio-lingual method. Theoreticians insisted that dialogue and pattern drill were "the way" to teach language, and recommended techniques that felt wrong to many teachers and students. A more recent "application of theory" was what may be called the "applied transformational grammar" movement, which featured materials directly based on current work in theoretical syntax and phonology. Applied TG did not significantly advance language teaching, for reasons that will become clear as we proceed. Its only tangible effect, perhaps, was that it needlessly made many teachers feel unprepared because they had not been trained in the latest version of transformational theory. (Lest the reader get the wrong impression, my personal view is that transformational-generative grammar, and the progress it stimulated in formal linguistics, should be recognized as an extremely important contribution, and easily outdid previous theories of linguistic structure. My point here is that it does not necessarily follow that second language methods and materials should be based directly on TG.)
These two theories, then, failed. The first, behaviorist theory, failed to apply successfully to language teaching because it was, simply, not a theory of language acquisition. The second, TG, failed because it was a theory of the product, the adult's competence, and not a theory of how the adult got that competence. It is not a theory of the process of language acquisition.
The "new" theory, which I will present in Chapter II, is a theory of second language acquisition, and attempts to deal with the process of language acquisition, not its product. Despite these virtues, it should only be considered one of several possible sources of information in determining methods and materials for second language teaching.
Compounding the failure of theoreticians to supply relevant theory has been the feeling among practitioners that failure to make the theory "work" has been their fault. They incorrectly concluded that it was their ignorance of theory that caused these theory-based methods to fail. As a result of this, teachers in recent years have appealed mostly to area III, their own ideas and intuitions, in determining what they do in the classroom. What teachers actually do is no longer based on theoretical or applied research. Materials, and many books on methodology, are based primarily on what seems to work in the classroom, and only rarely on a theory (recall earlier books based on audiolingualism or TG), and are usually not field-tested.
读后感
文中所说的外语教学理论和实践，让人联想到科学（science）和技术（technology）之间的区别与联系：科学一般是以理论的形式出现，比如物理、化学和许多交叉学科的精华往往就是若干看上去简单朴素的定理、公式、发现，而技术则是把科学的结论和各种生产生活需要、场景和材料相匹配、相结合的结果，所以技术一般和“应用”相连，而且多种多样。目前我们整个的IT技术帝国，实际上就是建立在晶体管的科学发现之上的。在科学和技术之间有一个联系的纽带，叫做“工程”（engineering）。那么多的工程师，实际上干的就是把科学原理转化为应用技术的工作。
那么转回头来看，在外语教学理论和实践之间，也应该有一个类似于“engineering”的联系纽带。这个纽带应该是什么呢？全国各地的各级教研员老师和师范院校外语专业的老师就是这个纽带。他们对理论和实践两方面都有着相当深入的研究，理应是外语教学理论和教学实践相结合的设计者和研究者。他们承担着各地的教师培训任务，不少人身在大学，却对中小学一线教学充满了兴趣，把全副精力投入到这项工作的研究中去，并且取得了丰硕的成果。如果朋友们对目前外语教学中理论与实践脱节的问题有兴趣的话，与教研员老师和师范院校外语专业老师们探讨，肯定会有进一步的认识。
当然，由于汉语和以英语为代表的西方外语之间的巨大差异，加上中国英语教学开展得相对较晚，目前中国的外语教学研究和应用总体水平还不能说很高，这有待于一代又一代的专家学者持续努力，薪火相传，力争早日使我们的外语教学跨入世界先进水平。在这个过程中，需要注意的克拉申提到的一个关键词：involved in language acquisition。简单地说，就是一些专职的研究者已经逐步、甚至已经脱离了语言习得过程，从而他们的理论研究不再能够和实践相结合。当然，简单地说他们不再学英语也是有失公允的，他们在学习，但由于分科的原因，外语教学法、二语习得属于语言学的分支，因而他们的语言学习往往就局限于语言学理论内容，这和一般的语言习得实践，特别是基础阶段的语言习得实践是有很大不同的。
一般来说，中小学英语教研员是从教学一线选拔上来的，他们都有着丰富的、成功的教学经验，实践积累相当深厚，但他们的理论学习往往相对滞后，甚至，很多时候由于现实工作、教学压力的逼迫，他们也不能完全清晰地认识到教学理论对实践的指导意义。师范院校外语专业老师则缺乏中小学英语教学实践经验——他们往往是师大毕业后直接分配到师范院校去任教，而即便他们实际参与了一线教学，有时也因为并非全职而体验不到一线教师的教学成绩压力。当然，这种现状近年来大有改观，希望在未来能够进一步得到改善。
当然，说外语教学理论和实践之间的“工程”主要落在教研员和师范院校外语专业老师身上，并不是说一线教师就没有这个努力的必要了。恰恰相反，只要是追求卓越的一线教师，就应当在实践经验积累到一定程度后及时转向理论的积累，力求用理论全面观照自己的教学实践，从而既知其然，又知其所以然，实现从努力出成绩到智慧出成绩的大幅度提升。在这个过程中，理论的指导是至关重要的，而只有经历过实践的打磨和洗礼，教师才有可能对理论的阐述心有所感，对实践的提高心有所向。
译文
现实中，许多研究者不再参与语言教学和语言习得，不与教师互动。理论研究和应用研究互动太少；那些寻找最好方法的人往往太少关心底层理论。也许最明显的是，教师和教材开发方很少注意任何形式的研究和理论化努力。
缺乏互动，特别是研究人员和教师之间缺乏互动，这事出有因。缺乏沟通的原因并非教师一方有什么反智主义（反感高深的理论）。相反，原因在于过去研究界未能提供有效地输入，理论家们又坚持认为他们的见解是教师行为和教材构建唯一合理的决定因素。换句话说，过去我们直接从理论跳到实践，而这样就是没有用。
这种手段有一些广为人知的例子，比如行为主义心理学的原则直接应用在教室里，称为“听说法”。理论家坚持认为，对话和句型练习是语言教学“之道”，并推荐了许多老师和学生觉得不对的教学技术。最近的一种“理论应用”是所谓的“转换语法（TG，译者注）应用”运动，教材直接基于当前在理论句法和语音方面的研究工作。应用TG没有显著促进语言教学，后面我们会明白其原因。其唯独的实在效果，也是本无必要的效果，也许是它使许多教师感到措手不及，因为他们没有接受过最新转换语法理论方面的培训。（为免读者产生错误的印象，我个人的观点是，转换生成语法及其在形式主义语言学中所激发的进展是极为重要的贡献，远胜以前的语言结构理论。我要说的是，这不一定意味着二语习得的方法和材料应该直接基于TG）。
于是，这两个理论失败了。第一种，行为主义理论，未能成功地应用于语言教学，因为它就不是语言习得理论。第二种，转换语法，也失败了，因为这是关于产品——成人的能力——的理论，而不是成人如何获得这种能力的理论。这不是语言习得过程的理论。
“新”的理论，我将在第二章提出，是第二语言习得理论，并试图处理语言习得的过程，而不是其产品。尽管有这些优点，这种新理论也只应该被认为是在决定第二语言教学方法和材料的过程中几种可能的信息源之一。
使得“理论家未能提供有效理论”这一失败更加复杂的是，一线教师感觉未能使理论“收效”是他们的错。他们错误地认为是他们无知，才使这些基于理论的方法遭到失败。因此，教师近年来更多地求助于第三种领域——自己的想法和直觉——以决定在教室里该做些什么。教师实际上做什么不再是基于理论和应用研究。教材和许多教学法图书主要是基于看来能够在教室里得到收效的东西，很少基于理论，而这些书籍通常都没有经过实战测试。
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