Language teaching has often been a melting pot for a variety of assumptions and beliefs about what language is and how it can best be learned and taught.

Some of these assumptions are based on folklore, and others reflect discarded theories and viewpoints about language teaching and learning. While some of the ideas we encounter in the language teaching market may be relatively harmless, others can have a negative impact on approaches both to language teaching as well as to the professional education of language teachers.

It is assumptions and claims of the latter kind that are my focus here, in which I want to examine seven persistent myths and claims about second language teaching.

Bio: Jack C. Richards has had an active career in the Asia Pacific region and is currently an honorary professor in the faculty of education at the University of Sydney and at the University of Auckland and an Adjunct Professor at Victoria University. He is a frequent presenter worldwide and has written over 150 books and articles on language teaching as well as many widely used classroom texts including the Interchange and Four Corners series.

(Filmed at the 2019 National Conference on May 25, 2019 in Jeonju by Wayne Finley for Korea TESOL Publicity.)