In Waters (2009), it was contended that, because of its ideological orientation, a good deal of applied linguistics for language teaching (ALLT) fails to "mediate relevantly" between academic and practitioner perspectives. James Simpson's rejoinder to my article (Simpson 2009) attempts to refute its claims. However, in my view, it fails to do so, and, in the process, provides a further illustration of the problem. This occurs because a language teaching approach developed in one type of English Language Teaching (ELT) situation is presented as if of relevance to the field as a whole, and a number of its major limitations are not acknowledged. How this is the case is explained and the implications for ALLT in general are also considered.