This article aims to discuss ten beliefs that teachers hold about second language (L2) learning and to relate these to relevant theories and approaches in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). It is especially written for L2 teachers who would like to know more about theoretical approaches that seek to explain L2 learning. Preliminary…

Second language acquisition (SLA) is a relatively new field of enquiry. Before the late 1960s, educators did write about L2 learning, but very much as an adjunct of language teaching pedagogy, underpinned by behaviourism, the then-dominant learning theory in psychology. In this view, the task facing learners of foreign languages was to rote-learn…

Appraises some of the major research in Spanish-English code-switching which has implications for determining the linguistic competence of bilinguals and the manner in which the two languages are represented in the cognitive apparatus. (EKN)

Indicates that the way different languages reduce speech to script affects how visual information is processed in the brain, suggesting that the relation between script and speech underlying all types of writing systems plays an important part in reading behavior. Compares memory performance of native English/Chinese speakers. (JN)

Describes a study that sought to characterize the Scotch-Irish influence on the dialect of southeastern Pennsylvania in particular and American English in general. A questionnaire was used to obtain lexical and grammatical data from 97 subjects. The study concludes that the Scotch-Irish linguistic heritage is rapidly disappearing. (19 references)…

This pamphlet describes the organization and objectives of the Yugoslav Serbo-Croatian-English contrastive analysis project. Interference is common in language contact of any sort, and it is assumed that interference can be predicted on the basis of contrastive analysis, and that the results thus obtained can be used in planning better teaching…

A study of second language acquisition in two Japanese children, and corresponding examination of research literature, led to this effort to clarify terminology related to cross-linguistic influence in language contact situations. Terms include: bilingualism, code-switching, language mixing, language transfer, and borrowing. Two forms of transfer…

This is an in-process report on over 100 English-as-a-Foreign-Language argumentative compositions written by Spanish university students in first and fourth year philology. The project aim was to compare writing development over 4 years in a cross-sectional design. As data were collected, factors other than developmental stages began to appear,…

The research discussed here, primarily that of P.J. Gal'perin and his associates at the University of Moscow, is an experimental demonstration of basic tenets of Vygotsky's theory. According to Gal'perin, grammatical knowledge is formed first by teaching the students material grammatical actions; these actions are ultimately to become mental…

Background: Politeness strategies vary from language to language and within each society. At times the wrong strategies can have disastrous effects. This can occur when languages are used by non-native speakers or when they are used outside of their own home linguistic context. Purpose: This study of spoken language compares the politeness…

An annotated bibliography presents 53 citations of dissertations, articles, and other works focusing on practical rather than theoretical aspects of the teaching and learning of second language pronunciation. Listed according to author, the subjects of the citations include: the need to teach pronunciation, teaching techniques, the use of reading…