The Need for an Integrated Theory: Connecting Modules

While second language acquisition research has been broad in scope, the approach has been largely modular. Findings and the theories used to account for findings have addressed only small, isolated parts of the total language learning picture. We argue that it is time to begin integrating modules in our research, to develop and test integrated models for second language data, and to develop integrated explanatory theories to explain these data. The result should be theories that cover a much broader scope, that are neurally plausible, and that allow us to integrate theories of teaching with theories of learning.