This article examines the relationship between spoken language research and ELT practice over the last 20 years. The first part is retrospective. It seeks first to capture the general tenor of recent spoken research findings through illustrative examples. The article then considers the sociocultural issues that arose when the relevance of these insights to ELT was discussed. This is followed by a brief assessment of the impact spoken language research has made on ELT practice so far. The second part of the article looks to the future and considers how research might help us to take a more principled and coherent approach to teaching spoken language. The concluding argument of the article is that the spoken language debate provides an interesting case study of the relationship between theory and practice in ELT and points to the way we might engage with other debates in the field.