As I read, I quickly came to the conclusion that I like Lightbrown and Spada's book better than Saville-Troike's. I think they present information in a more clear way. Though it might have been the fact that they focus on a few theories instead of attempting go through each of them. Regardless, I was amazed at the number of different theories. I found the Interaction Hypothesis to be the most useful and clearly relevant to teachers. The methods mentioned in Lightbrown and Spada's book (slower speech rate, gesture, elaboration, etc.) are all strategies that teachers use on a regular basis. The theory seems like common sense that people would use different methods of interaction depending on who they were talking to and what they were doing.
The developmental levels of the information organization method was also interesting. From my own rather limited experience learning a second language, I can see these come into play as I learned. I would first start off naming things and then move on to produce sentences. My second year of learning Spanish, I was just starting to add morphemes to show tenses and point of view/person. I don't think that I've learned enough of a second language to make it to the Finite Utterance Organization yet. These theories make me wonder how a class would be structured if it chose a theory as it's guiding principles for instruction. Perhaps, I will dig out my Rosetta Stone disks and see if I can determine which theory is behind its organization and methods.
The more strategies I read about the more I realize that there is so much more research to be done. No one seems to have all the answers. I wonder if we ever will find a single answer.
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