Speaking in Tongues radio series

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Second Language Acquisition

Scott Thornbury

Do we learn a language just by repeating things...? Or by learning the rules and then applying them...? Is it just a question of a massive amount of exposure to the language...? Or perhaps are we genetically programmed, "hard-wired in the brain", to learn languages?

Scott Thornbury (right) looks at some of the theories...

• Scott Thornbury is a well-known writer of books for English teachers. His latest book is An A-Z of ELT, to be published by MacMillan in June 2006.

Learn more

Some of Scott Thornbury's other books for ELT

Listen to the series

"Speaking in Tongues" is a series of short English-language radio programmes, produced and recorded by IH Barcelona. The 25-programme series is broadcast on Saturday mornings by Radio Free Barcelona on 107.7 FM.

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About the series

The series discusses a range of different topics relating to language, language learning and language teaching.

The programme is intended for a general public, but will of course be of special interest to language teachers and students.