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[TRH]

I never could see the practical application of Chomsky's Universal Grammar in ESL as it seemed concerned primarily with L1 acquisition. However, I expect that anyone with a comprehensive TEFL course has heard of it.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/evidence-rebuts-chomsky-s-theory-of-language-learning/

[rogerwilco]

I used to work with a Chinese teacher that tried to claim that a Chinese babies' brain is different, and that is why a Chinese baby could speak Chinese while a non-Chinese baby couldn't.

Of course, he also tried to use that as a reason as to why Chinese are supposedly smarter. Their brain is capable of easily learning Chinese, while ours isn't.....

[creeper1]

When I first saw the thread title I was expecting a rebuttal of something he said about the Vietnam war.

[skarper]

Unlikely to be any cogent rebuttal of Chomsky's stance on the Vietnam war or any of his political/human rights work.

I skimmed the article and it seems to be more of a qualification of his linguistics theory rather than a rebuttal. This is the way academia works. Someone advances a theory, it may be accepted for a while but it is expected to be built upon when more data is available or research done.