We present a new feedback strategy implemented in a natural language generation-based e-learning system for German as a second language (L2). Although the system recognizes a large proportion of the grammar errors in learner-produced written sentences, its automatically generated feedback only addresses errors against rules that are relevant at…

The patterns of acquisition of the passe compose and imperfect tenses in French among 16 adult beginning and intermediate students were studied. Based on 15-minute speech samples in which both verb tenses were elicited by seeded questions and cues for descriptive and narrative monologues, the intermediate learners had greater success with the…

In language instruction, students do not learn to elicit needed information in the classroom or in real, everyday communicative situations because (1) the material they ask questions about in class is basically uninteresting to them, and (2) many student responses that would be incomprehensible to a non-English-speaking person are left uncorrected…

An analysis of two French-English business dictionaries, a 1989 revised edition and a 1990 edition, looks at a number of weaknesses in the resources' design and content. First, problems are found in transcriptions of pronunciation that do not reflect actual usage when it differs from convention and in lack of attention to pronunciation of words…

This paper discusses the concept of error in the learning of the phonology of a second language and argues that the concept of error must be viewed as a positive element, an initiation of the process of successive approximations toward the correct phonetic realization. Based on the idea that interference between two languages generates a…

This study evaluated a partial-immersion program in French in Victoria, Australia, an area in which little research has been conducted to date. The program has operated at an elementary school since 1991 and is the first English/French program of its kind in Victoria. French is the language of instruction for at least 40 percent of classes, with…

Based on the premise that teaching basic writing involves first understanding what tends to go wrong when students write, a computer assisted system of error prediction and analysis was designed to improve college students' writing skills in both English and French. Students were to complete a sequenced series of writing assignments first in…