Rod Ellis's latest offering addresses issues relating to the interface between SLAresearch and language pedagogy. To this end, the book opens with an informative andthought-provoking examination of applied SLA (research simultaneously encompassing thetheory and practice of SLA and pedagogy), which, following Widdowson, Ellis distinguishesfrom SLA applied (extension of SLA findings to teaching). In this regard he discusses thedifference between technical knowledge and “confirmatory,” often experimental,research on the one hand, and practical knowledge and “interpretative,” real world,observation-interactional research on the other. According to Ellis, the confirmatory tradition,which promotes an applied science (i.e., SLA applied) view of education, has been the dominantparadigm in the field. This tradition situates researchers at the top of the research-practicehierarchy as producers of information and locates teachers lower down on the hierarchy asinformation consumers.