Reviews research on the effectiveness of recasts in first and second language acquisition, paying particular attention to how recasts have been defined and how their impact has been assessed in observational and experimental studies. Concludes that recasts appear to be most effective in contexts where it is clear to the learner that the recast is…

Following a review of the language teaching practices of the past 50 years, reassess ten second language acquisition (SLA) research generalizations in light of the considerable amount of classroom-based SLA research that has been carried out since 1985, especially that which has addressed pedagogical concerns in primary and secondary school…

Two English-speaking six-year-olds attending a French-speaking kindergarten in Montreal were tested for the content of their French L2 (second language) utterances. An adaptation of the mean length of utterance (MLU) index was used to judge the order of acquisition in the encoding of semantic-syntactic relations in the second language. The same…

Describes a research project in which the acquisition of French by two six-year-old boys, native speakers of English, was observed longitudinally. (CFM)

Describes a study which examines "introducer forms" used by English as a second language learners to initiate picture descriptions. Results suggest that students receiving formal second language instruction process the input data in ways which are more "acquisition-like" and often not consistent with what the teacher intends…

This article describes the context and conditions of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) programs in Quebec's French-language schools and reports on several studies of the intensive ESL classes used in some elementary schools. Research on these programs demonstrates their effectiveness in fostering English language skills and positive attitudes…

Highlights research priorities for the Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) field, including the following: age of beginning instruction, learning to read in a second language, dual-language education for English language learners, language assessment and program evaluation, English as a global language, learning English for…

This book is designed to help second and foreign language teachers understand how languages are learned. Chapter 1 examines several theories on how young children acquire their first language, including behaviorist, innatist, and interactionist models. Chapter 2 presents and analyzes several theories on second language (SL) learning. Chapter 3…

This paper is based on a longitudinal study of the development of questions in the spontaneous speech of two anglophone boys learning French by attending French language schools. The development of form-meaning relations in information questions in the children's French L2 speech was examined and comparisons were made with the same form-meaning…