Research – Professor Jack C. Richards

If you were to give one key piece of advice to novice English teachers, what would it be?

Treat lesson time as practice time, not “explanation time.”

As a novice, it’s tempting to prove you know your stuff by explaining grammar, vocabulary, and rules in detail. But students don’t learn much from hearing you talk; they learn from using the language themselves.

So when you plan:

Ask: “What will students be doing with English for most of this lesson?” not “What will I explain?”
Keep explanations short, simple, and timed (1–3 minutes).
Build in lots of guided practice and communicative tasks where learners:
listen/read for real purposes
speak/write to solve a problem, share opinions, or complete a task
get quick feedback so they can try again, a bit better.

If you consistently design lessons where students are the ones doing the thinking, speaking, and writing, your techniques, classroom management, and confidence will grow naturally—and their English will, too.

What common mistakes have you noticed in the application of language teaching methodologies in non‑English‑speaking countries?

Several recurring patterns appear across many non‑English‑speaking contexts (though not everywhere or in the same way). A central issue is the tendency to import teaching methods without adapting them to local realities. Some common mistakes include the following:

1. Treating methodology as fashion rather than principle
Schools may claim to adopt CLT, TBLT, or other modern approaches by name, while:

syllabuses remain largely grammar‑translation based
exams continue to test discrete grammar items and vocabulary

As a result, teachers add occasional pair work or games and label them “communicative,” while the underlying system remains unchanged.

2. Ignoring exam washback
High‑stakes exams often reward grammatical accuracy, translation, and multiple‑choice reading comprehension.
At the same time, schools claim to follow communicative or task‑based approaches.
This mismatch pushes teachers to “teach to the test,” turning CLT into a superficial add‑on and frustrating both teachers and students.

3. Over‑reliance on L1—or banning it entirely
In some contexts, most explanation and practice take place in learners’ L1, with the target language limited to example sentences.
In reaction, other institutions enforce a strict “English only” policy, even when L1 could efficiently support comprehension or contrastive analysis.
Both extremes ignore research supporting the judicious use of L1 to support—not replace—L2 learning.

4. Misunderstanding “communicative” as unstructured free chatting
CLT is sometimes reduced to open conversation or games with little input, weak task design, and no focus on form.
Lower‑proficiency learners may flounder, produce very little language, or repeatedly fossilize errors.
Effective CLT includes structured input, clear outcomes, scaffolding, and targeted feedback.

5. Neglecting systematic grammar and vocabulary development
In reaction against grammar‑translation methods, some programs under‑teach form, assuming learners will “pick it up naturally.”
With limited exposure (e.g., two or three hours per week), accuracy often stagnates without planned recycling, noticing, and explanation where appropriate.

6. Implementing methods without adequate teacher training or support
New methodologies are often introduced through a single workshop or a textbook preface.
Teachers lack:

sustained, classroom‑based training
observation and feedback
time to adapt materials

Faced with large classes and heavy curricula, many teachers revert to lecturing and translation because unfamiliar methods feel risky.

7. Copying so‑called “native speaker” models without contextual adaptation
Materials may assume Western, English‑speaking cultural norms and communicative styles (e.g., casual small talk, pub culture, or humor) without mediation.
Learners practice dialogues that do not reflect their realities and may feel the language is not meant for “people like them.”
Intercultural competence and local relevance are often insufficiently addressed.

8. Over‑scripted but under‑interactive lessons
Teachers follow textbooks page by page, and “communicative” activities become scripted role plays with memorized lines.
There is little room for genuine information gaps, negotiation of meaning, or learner choice.
The method appears modern on paper but remains teacher‑fronted in practice.

9. Assessment that contradicts the teaching method
Even when classroom practices are communicative, assessment often relies on:

discrete grammar items
translation exercises
isolated vocabulary lists

This signals to learners that real communication is secondary, while manipulating forms for marks is what truly matters.

10. Underestimating local constraints
Imported methodologies often assume:

small classes
flexible classroom layouts
ample technology and resources

In reality, classes may have 40–60 students, fixed desks, and limited access to technology.
Applying methods “by the book” without adaptation can lead to superficial activities, classroom management issues, and eventual disillusionment.

11. Ignoring learner beliefs and expectations
Many learners and parents equate “serious teaching” with:

explicit grammar explanations
note‑taking
teacher‑led instruction

Sudden shifts to pair work and tasks, without explanation, may be perceived as play or wasted time, leading to resistance or disengagement.

12. Technology use without methodological purpose
Digital tools, apps, or AI are sometimes introduced as novelties:

drill‑heavy apps replace richer practice
AI translators are used to complete homework

Without strategy training or integration into pedagogy, technology becomes an end in itself rather than a means to support learning.

In summary, effective methodology requires adaptation to local exams, class sizes, cultures, and resources; alignment between teaching and assessment; sustained teacher development; and transparent communication with learners about why classroom practices are changing.

How can teachers balance communicative language teaching with the necessity of grammar instruction?

Teachers can balance communicative language teaching and grammar instruction by treating grammar as a tool for communication rather than as a separate subject. In practice, this means the following:

1. Start from meaning, not from rules
Teachers should design tasks in which a specific grammar point is naturally needed (e.g., the past tense to tell stories, conditionals to give advice).
Students should first attempt to complete the task using their existing linguistic resources.
Only afterwards should the teacher highlight the target structure, showing how it allows students to express meaning more clearly, accurately, or precisely.

This aligns with a focus on form approach:

the main classroom focus remains on understanding and expressing meaning
attention is briefly drawn to grammatical form as it arises in communication

For example:

recasts: a student says “Yesterday I go…” and the teacher reformulates “Yesterday I went…”
quick clarification: the teacher writes a couple of examples on the board, underlines the form, checks understanding, and then returns to the activity

These are short, targeted interventions rather than long rule explanations.

2. Integrate grammar into communicative tasks
After a brief grammar focus, the structure should be used immediately in meaningful communication, for example:

information‑gap activities that require the target form
role plays, problem‑solving tasks, or surveys built around the structure
purposeful writing tasks (e.g., emails, reviews, stories) in which the grammar is essential

3. Revisit grammar cyclically through richer communication
Teachers should accept that one exposure is rarely sufficient.
Key grammar points should be recycled in later lessons through new contexts, topics, and skills.
Each encounter keeps the focus communicative while gradually increasing accuracy.

4. Differentiate the level of explicitness according to learners’ needs

At lower levels: focus on simple, high‑frequency patterns with extensive oral practice and minimal metalanguage.
At higher levels: provide more explicit explanations, contrastive analysis (L1 vs. L2), and detailed form‑focused feedback in speaking and writing.

Since some learners prefer clear rules while others benefit more from implicit learning, a combination of approaches is most effective.

5. Use correction strategically
During fluency activities, teachers should correct only errors that impede communication or relate to the target structure.
More detailed accuracy work can be reserved for post‑task stages, writing feedback, or short “grammar clinics.”
This maintains students’ willingness to communicate while still supporting linguistic development.

6. Encourage noticing and reflection
Teachers can use short noticing activities with authentic texts, such as underlining verb forms, reordering sentences, or inferring rules from examples.
Asking questions like “Why do they say it this way here?” encourages learners to reflect before receiving explicit explanations.
Students can then articulate simple grammar rules in their own words.

In summary, communicative tasks should form the backbone of lessons, with brief, purposeful grammar instruction woven in through a focus on form that emerges from—and feeds back into—real communication.

In today’s world, where language learning is increasingly integrated with digital technologies and AI, what do you see as the greatest challenge for language teachers?

The greatest challenge is keeping the teacher’s human role central while so much of language learning becomes automated.

More concretely, this challenge breaks down into several interrelated issues:

1. Redefining what “teaching” means when AI can explain and drill almost anything
Apps and chatbots can provide instant grammar explanations, translations, examples, and drills.
As a result, teachers must shift from being the primary source of language input to becoming:

designers of meaningful tasks and projects
coaches for communication strategies, confidence, and autonomy
guides who help students use AI critically rather than passively

Many teachers were never trained for this shift.

2. Helping students use AI well, not just often
Students may overuse translators and GPT-like tools and bypass real cognitive processing.
Teachers must teach:

when AI is useful (e.g., feedback, brainstorming, pronunciation support)
when it harms learning (e.g., instant translation instead of inferring meaning from context, copying answers)

This requires strong digital literacy, redesigned assessment, and ongoing monitoring.

3. Maintaining authenticity and real communication
If AI can speak “perfect” English, students may wonder why they should practice with classmates.
Teachers therefore need to design classroom activities in which:

there is a real reason to listen and respond
students negotiate meaning, express emotion, disagree, and persuade—skills AI simulations cannot fully replace

4. Assessment and academic integrity
Writing and homework tasks can now be easily generated by AI, reducing the validity of traditional assignments.
Teachers need new task types (e.g., in‑class, spoken, process‑focused, and reflective tasks) and clear ways to detect, integrate, and discuss AI use openly and ethically.

5. Keeping up with technology without losing pedagogical grounding
Digital tools evolve faster than curricula, textbooks, and teacher training.
Teachers must constantly decide:

which tools genuinely improve learning
which ones are distractions or add unnecessary workload

Conclusion
Ultimately, the core challenge is redefining and protecting the uniquely human, pedagogical role of the language teacher: designing meaningful learning experiences and guiding students in the critical and ethical use of AI, while traditional roles such as explainer, drill provider, and corrector are increasingly automated.

Question:

Submitted by Italo, The University of Queensland, Australia

How you know what vocabulary should be taught when designing your textbooks. How do you decide which words are appropriate for some levels and which aren’t?

Dr. Richards responds:

Textbooks writers usually consult any of a number of word lists that group words according to level and frequency. (Paul Nation’s vocabulary level’s test is a useful reference here). Increasingly reference is also made to corpus studies of word frequency.

In discussing knowledge of words, an important distinction is usually made between a person’s active, or productive, vocabulary and their passive, or receptive, vocabulary, since our passive vocabulary is generally much larger than our active vocabulary. In spoken English, for example, native speakers may use a relatively small number of words in daily conversation – as few as 1,500 different words – though they recognize far more words than they use. For passive vocabulary knowledge, researchers suggest that knowing a minimum vocabulary of 3,000 word families (which equals some 5,000 words) is required to enable a person to understand a high percentage of words on an average page of a text, and that 5,000 word families (some 8,000 words) is required to be able to read for pleasure. Twice as many words may be needed to read first-year university materials. It is also important to distinguish between knowledge of content words (those that carry the main meaning of sentences, such as nouns, main verbs, adverbs, adjectives and question words, e.g. why, when, what), demonstratives (this, that, these, those) and function words (those that express grammatical relationships, such as articles, prepositions, auxiliaries, pronouns, conjunctions and relative pronouns). There is a small, finite list of function words in English, but a very large set of content words. When people expand their vocabulary knowledge, they add to their knowledge of content words.

O’Keeffe et al. (2007: 37–47) suggest that based on their research on the frequency of items in spoken English, a basic or core spoken English vocabulary for second language learners contains several different categories of words:

Modal items: These describe degrees of certainty or necessity and include modal verbs, such as can, must, should, may, etc.; lexical modals, such as look, seem, sound; and adverbs, such as probably, definitely and apparently.
Delexical verbs: These are words with little lexical content but high frequency, such as do, make, take, get, and their collocations with nouns, prepositional phrases and particles.
Stance words: These communicate the speaker’s attitude towards something and include words such as just, whatever, actually, really, basically, clearly, honestly and
Discourse markers: These are words that are used to organize talk and monitor its  progress, such as you know, I mean, right, well, good and
Basic nouns: These are nouns referring to common activities, events, situations, places and people, such as person, problem, trouble, birthday; days of the week; family members; and colours.
General deictics: These are words that relate the speaker to the world in terms of time and space, such as here, there, now, then and
Basic adjectives: These are words that communicate everyday positive and negative evaluations of situations, people, events and things, such as lovely, nice, horrible, brilliant, terrible and
Basic adverbs: These are adverbs of high frequency referring to time, frequency and habituality, such as today, tomorrow, always, usually, suddenly and
Basic verbs for actions and events: These are verbs describing everyday activities, such as give, leave, feel, put and
Some of these types of words are not found in vocabulary lists for ESL/ELT learners because such lists have often been based on frequency counts of written language, rather than spoken English  Beyond the core vocabulary, O’Keeffe et al. (2007: 48–9) suggest the following targets for vocabulary learning:  A receptive vocabulary of some 5,000 to 6,000 words would appear to be a good threshold at which to consider learners at the top of the intermediate level and ready to take on an advanced programme. Such a programme would ideally have the following aims:
- To increase the receptive vocabulary size to enable comprehension targets above 90% (e.g. up to 95%) for typical texts to be reached.
- To expose the learner to a range of vocabulary at frequency levels beyond the first 5,000– 6,000 word band, but which is not so rare or obscure as to be of little practical use.
- To inculcate the kinds of knowledge required for using words at this level, given their often highly specific lexical meanings and connotations.
- To train awareness, skills and strategies that will help the learner become an independent vocabulary learner, and one who can continue the task for as long as he or she desires.

For further information see the chapter on vocabulary in my book Key Issues In Language Teaching (Cambridge University Press 2015) and also:

Nation, I. S. P. (2001) Learning Vocabulary in a Second Language, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
O’Keeffe, A., McCarthy, M. and Carter, R. (2007) From Corpus to Classroom, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Question:

Submitted by Mehran Darabi, Azad University, Iran

What is the position of applied linguistics in relation to other language-related disciplines?
What are some future directions in applied linguistics? Are corpus linguistics and CALL possible future directions?

Dr. Richards responds:

Applied linguistics refers to the study of language in relation to real-world issues. Language teaching is one branch of applied linguistics, but applied linguistics also sometimes includes such things as language and the law, language planning, and language in the media. Applied linguistics differs from other fields of language study that may have a descriptive or explanatory purposes but do not seek to resolve issues in education or society.

Corpus linguistics and CALL have been a part of applied linguistics for many years. More recent issues in applied linguistics include World Englishes, the use of technology and the internet in language learning and teaching, translanguage language use as well as identity in language learning.

Submitted by Lester John A. Cajes, Las Piñas National High School, Philippines

Students perform better when they realize that what they are learning is relevant to their current needs and interest. For instance, teaching the structure of yes-no questions to students of a research-oriented program can be integrated with making a survey form or a questionnaire. In this case, the students will find it highly necessary to learn how to write accurate questions to be able to come up with presentable survey tools that will not only enhance their research but also impress their survey respondents who might be their peers as well.Here are the steps.

Present examples in class, and let the students discover the pattern in formulating yes-no questions. Let them transform statements into questions and vice versa for further familiarization.
Let the students think of a topic that they may use in an actual research, e.g., study habits, choosing friends or peers, school club preference.
Ask the students to work in groups (3 to 4 members look fine) and draft questions that will let them gather information as regards their chosen topic. Then, they have to decide on whether their target response is a simple “yes or no” or a range of options, e.g., never, seldom, often, and always. Remind them to make their questions clear and concise. They should also avoid using negative markers such as “not” and “never” to avoid making their respondents confused.
Collect their drafts and give comments on their content and grammar. Let them revise until all the questions become accurate and appropriate.
After finalizing the questionnaire, ask the students to prepare for the actual survey. Have a brief discussion on the lines or spiels and procedures that have to be observed. Once ready, send them to the battlefield; let them conduct the survey.
Finally, let the students use graphs or tables to present the data they have gathered. Then, they interpret such figures in linear form. At this point, they have to make sure that the information is properly transcoded from linear form to non-linear form or vice versa. Well, that’s another language skill for them to refine. See, this activity lets you hit two birds (even several birds) with one stone.

Question:

Submitted by Juriah, Indonesia

What is the role of curiosity in students’ learning and how to activate it?

Dr. Richards responds:

I am not aware of research on this topic specifically in relation to second language learning, however if you do a google search you will discover a host of articles on this topic, ranging from pop psychology to more serious discussions of the topic.

Question:

Submitted by Anna, Instituto Superior Cristal Dili, Timor-Leste

If we conduct language research… what is the technique and procedure to collect the data?

Dr. Richards responds:

Two different kinds of approaches can be used in conducting research, quantitative and qualitative. Quantitative measurement refers to the measurement of something that can be expressed numerically. Many tests are designed to collect information that can be readily counted and presented in terms of frequencies, rankings, or percentages. Other sources of quantitative information are checklists, surveys, and self-ratings. Quantitative data seek to collect information from a large number of people on specific topics and can generally be analyzed statistically so that certain patterns and tendencies emerge. The information collected can be analyzed fairly simply because subjective decisions are not usually involved. Traditionally, quantitative data are regarded as “rigorous” or conforming to scientific principles of data collection, though the limitations of quantitative information are also recognized; hence the need to complement such information with qualitative information.

Qualitative measurement refers to measurement of something that cannot be expressed numerically and that depends more on subjective judgment or observation. Information obtained from classroom observation, interviews, journals, logs, and case studies is generally qualitative. Qualitative approaches are more holistic and naturalistic than quantitative approaches and seek to collect information in natural settings for language use and on authentic tasks rather than in test situations. They are normally more exploratory and seek to collect a large amount of information from a fairly small number of cases. The information obtained is more difficult to analyze because it is often open-ended and must be coded or interpreted. Qualitative data are sometimes regarded as “soft” or less rigorous than quantitative data, but such information is essential in many stages of program evaluation.