Long, Michael H.

Michael H. Long, among the most important figures in the field of second language acquisition (SLA), is best known as the originator of the interaction hypothesis in the 1980s and the focus-on-form principle of second language (L2) instruction in the early 1990s. Over 30 years, his ideas have been deeply influential in the development and consolidation of these and other research programs in SLA, including work on task-based language teaching, critical periods and fossilization, and research methods and epistemologies in SLA. Keywords: language teaching; second language acquisition; interactionist language studies