Silva, Cristina Maria Ferreira Pinto da2013-06-062013-06-0620021645-1937http://hdl.handle.net/10400.22/1662A very brief overview on research on classroom language learning seems to support Gitlin's statement that Educational research is still a process that for the most part silences those studied, ignores their personal knowledge, and strengthens the assumption that researchers are the producers of knowledge. (1990: 444) Research in Second Language Acquisition (SLA) in general and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) in particular has moved in recent years from “an almost exclusive concern with the teacher and teaching procedures to issues related to the learner and learning processes” (Kübler, 1991: 1). However, the ultimate focus of many of the early studies on learners was still the optimisation of teaching and the development of teaching techniques (Allwright, 1988), rather than an attempt to describe and understand better learners' contributions to the classroom.engEnsinojournal article10.34630/polissema.vi2.3424