THE AUTHOR Sandra Silberstein is professor and associate chair of English at the University of Washington, Seattle, United States, where she directs the MATESOL Program She is former editor of the TESOL Quarterly Her publications span ESOL textbooks and work in critical applied linguistics Mapping the Scope of Theory in TESOL TIM McNAMARA The University of Melbourne Melbourne, Australia In this article, I will consider the scope of theory and its relation to practice in TESOL, but I want to preface it with a reflection on why, as a practitioner, I became aware of the need for theory, and the effect that engaging with theory had on building my capacity as a teacher and teacher trainer I worked for 13 years as a teacher and teacher trainer in a number of settings in England and Australia before I became a researcher working in graduate-level TESOL and applied linguistics programs It was in midcareer as a TESOL teacher, teaching EFL to adults in a private language school in London, that I discovered theory, working on my master’s degree in applied linguistics at the University of London, and I found it had a liberating influence on my teaching I had been teaching full time for years when I began my master’s degree, and I found that theory broke up a lot of old concrete in my head It challenged most of my cherished beliefs about language teaching and learning and as a result made the classroom a much more interesting place As well as carrying out my usual practice, I became an observer in my own classroom, of myself and, in particular, of my students, and kept thinking about what I was doing and what alternatives there might be Once I had developed an appetite for that understanding, it never left me To learn that a site of practice was also a site for thinking gave a dimension to my experience of teaching which has remained with me Theory was also helpful for another practical reason I had begun delivering short intensive practical TESOL teacher training courses under what came to be known as the Cambridge CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults), and I found that engagement with theory gave me the metaview of teaching and learning that I needed in order to know the material I was presenting and in order to understand what I was observing going on between the teachers I was training and their learners 302 TESOL QUARTERLY Given the need to engage teachers and future teacher trainers with theory, what is its scope? Can we define or map it in some way, so that we know what might be covered, and what repertoire of theoretical perspectives we might select from? How has theory informed the field, and how is the role of theory evolving? Existing surveys of the broader field of applied linguistics (e.g., Kaplan, 2002; Davies & Elder, 2004) or of educational linguistics (Spolsky & Hult, 2007) are usually synchronic and descriptive, dividing the field by topics or by research methods, rather than themselves being theoretical, that is, organized in terms of theoretically motivated categories (a possible exception is Stern, 1983) Alternatively, some researchers have proposed a single theoretical framework within which the character of the field can be understood, either descriptively (Spolsky, 1989) or critically (Pennycook, 2001) In contrast to this, Candlin and McNamara (2008) have recently developed a new kind of mapping, both synchronically (in terms of the theories that are drawn on today) and diachronically (in terms of the development of theoretical perspectives over time) This approach proposes five broad categories for thinking about the practical world of English language teaching and learning Learning involves individual minds, but minds that are in interaction with others (learners, teachers, interlocutors); learning and teaching occur within institutional constraints, and involve the social identities of learners and teachers; both of these are shaped by the cultural and social milieus in which they are located Each of these facets requires a different field from which to draw relevant concepts and theories For example, a focus on the cognition of the individual learner draws on theories in psychology, including the study of language processing (psycholinguistics), the acquisition of grammatical understanding, and theories of learning, both general and specific to the learning of second languages It also draws on theories of language that see language as an essentially cognitive phenomenon, focusing on the storage of linguistic knowledge in the individual mind The linguistics of structuralism and universal grammar informs this approach to understanding individual consciousness and capacity for language Research on speakers in interaction at first drew on individualistic psychology However, another source of insight which offers a radically different perspective comes from conversation analysis—the branch of sociology which has tried to understand the ordering of face-to-face interaction as a coordinated social phenomenon A further important source is the socially oriented psychology of Vygotsky, which locates the origins of consciousness in interaction Theories of identity in relation to language have traditionally been drawn from sociology, anthropology, and social psychology Today these approaches have been challenged by the insights of poststructuralist theory, which sees the possibilities for self-perception as SYMPOSIUM: THEORY IN TESOL 303 a function of social discourses and oppositions in social life The sources for understanding the institutional environment of language learning are available in a variety of schools of sociology and in policy studies, and from work in poststructuralism focusing on the institutional character of modernity Theories of the broader social and cultural context abound in cultural studies, branches of sociology and anthropology, and again in poststructuralism It is important to recognize that each particular theoretical perspective may also act as a constraint on thinking, as other perspectives are backgrounded or even suppressed For example, the individualistic focus of the theories underlying work in second language acquisition for the first 30 or more years of the field was simply taken for granted and not seen as limiting inquiry until relatively recently Newer, more social perspectives on the processes and contexts of acquisition drawn from sources in conversation analysis and Vygotskyan psychology have arisen to challenge the previously dominant individualistic perspective The various schools of thought thus engage in a process of mutual critique, and the terms of these debates can be illuminating and helpful in clarifying the issues at stake On the other hand, it must not be thought that the inevitable development of theory results in one theoretical perspective simply being superseded by another The field is marked by the co-existence of potentially incommensurable but potentially mutually illuminating perspectives It is important to keep alive an understanding of the theoretical perspectives that have been proposed in the past so that their enduring relevance is appreciated and so that we not go on reinventing the wheel For this reason, it is important that those being introduced to the theory of TESOL should know the classic and enduringly relevant papers of authors such as Chomsky, Hymes, Corder, Widdowson, Lambert, Halliday, Grice, Sacks and Schegloff, Labov, Fishman, and others Historical amnesia is a persistent temptation in a practically oriented intellectual field such as ours Any education of TESOL teachers beyond their initial period of training will need to introduce teachers to some or all of these broad perspectives, each of which has the potential to illuminate the practical problems that teachers and learners face What is needed, as Widdowson has always argued, is the skill of the applied linguist in demonstrating the relevance of this theory to practitioners, in mediating between theory and practice As the various fields of theory develop and proliferate, the demands on those introducing theory to practitioners grow ever more complex That is why intellectual guides to the whole area and its many perspectives are needed, as a resource for trainers and educators and as a way of demonstrating the richness of available perspectives to practitioners wishing to understand and develop their practice 304 TESOL QUARTERLY THE AUTHOR Tim McNamara is professor of applied linguistics at the University of Melbourne, where he is also active in the Language Testing Research Centre His research interests include language testing, language and identity, languages for specific purposes, the history and theory of applied linguistics, and poststructuralist perspectives on language, with particular reference to the work of Jacques Derrida TESOL in the Corporate University ALLAN LUKE Queensland University of Technology Queensland, Australia Thanks to Alister Cumming for opening this debate in his provocative, meticulously argued piece I smiled when I read his memo: Would that any of us lived in universities brave or naïve enough to convene a “task force on theory.” Theory matters—and Cumming has done us a service by outlining the disciplinary and paradigmatic resources for TESOL as an academic and intellectual field But his memo also speaks to urgent questions about the status and viability of TESOL in the academy As Cumming suggests, we can frame the issue as a case study of the philosophy and sociology of science This approach can lead us toward a dialogue over theory But it also can lead us to the everyday worlds of academic faculties and departments where TESOL is taught, studied, and investigated Taking the latter route, I want to respond to this fictive memo on its own terms: It is a textual action within the institutions where we struggle every day over the grounds and conditions not just for teaching and learning, knowledge and ideas, cultures and languages—but as well over resources, capital, status, jobs, and, indeed, institutional survival I write from the perspective of a former dean and an educational sociologist who has taught and written on TESOL My case here is that TESOL will remain viable in the context of the corporate university But this viability is more directly tied to its status as a “service” field for a robust global profession and industry than to its theoretical coherence per se There are two affiliated caveats: first, that as the political economy and linguistic ecology changes, the field of TESOL will necessarily be unstable; second, that as a service field, TESOL will continue to risk marginalization and diminished status within university hierarchies and funding structures The field will survive, but that survival may be on a drip SYMPOSIUM: THEORY IN TESOL 305