Reports on research into the interactive roles played in the verbal comprehension processes by the sequence of textual elements, text-specific prior knowledge, and levels of language proficiency. Four cloze tests were administered to undergraduate and graduate native speakers of English and to undergraduate non-native speakers of English at three…

Assessment of the English writing proficiency of 23 native French speaking students on 3 composition tasks found variance in the qualities of written texts and problem-solving behaviors. Writing expertise was found to affect discourse organization and content, writing complexity, heuristic strategies, and control strategies, while second-language…

Compared the reactions of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) teachers and nonteachers to nonnative communication. The study focused on two questions: Are ESL teacher and nonteacher perceptions of advanced ESL students' communication skills multidimensional? and Are there differences in ESL teacher and nonteacher perceptions of this communication?…

Investigated the emergence of orientations and their relation to motivation in a predominantly monolingual context. Participants were 93 Quebec City francophone Grade 11 high school students learning English as a Second Language. (Author/JL)

Investigated whether beginning adult learners, given auditory stimuli, were equally likely to represent French gender subclasses using phonological, morphosyntactic, and/or semantic representations. Data from adult English speakers learning patterned French and translation equivalent lists indicated that the construct of input for gender learning…

Investigated the relationships among three types of vocabulary knowledge (passive, controlled active, and free active) within the same individuals, taking four variables into consideration: passive vocabulary size, language learning context, second (L2) for foreign (FL), length of residence in L2 context, and, among the Canadians, knowledge of…

Native English-speaking (NS) listeners evaluated effects of three types of instruction (segmental accuracy; general speaking habits and prosodic factors; and no specific pronunciation instruction) on speech of three groups of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learners. Sentences were recorded and extemporaneously produced narratives at beginning…

Examines whether learners initiate attention to form, as requests for assistance, feedback on error, modeling, or repetitions, recasts, and requests for clarification. Results suggest that learners can and do attend to form, though relatively infrequently. The most frequent way they they do this is to request assistance from their teachers.…

Reports on research examining whether first language learners do not include regular plural [-s] inflection within compounds, whereas they do include irregulars. Adolescent francophone English-as-Second-Language students and 15 adult native-speaker controls were required to generate novel compounds in English. Results report regular plurals were…

Focuses on changes over time in university level Japanese students' sociocultural perceptions of social status during the year they studied abroad in Canada and the impact of the changes on their pragmatic use of English when offering advice. Compared the development of 97 Japanese exchange students' pragmatic competence with that of 102 peers in…

The socio-contextual model of second language (L2) learning proposes that L2 learning is influenced by aspects of contact with the L2 community, L2 confidence, and identification to both the first language and L2 community ( Clement, 1980; Noels & Clement, 1996). The present study examines how these aspects are linked to individuals' cultural…

The school performance of pupils in grades K-2 of the French immersion program in operation in Ottawa public schools is evaluated in comparison with that of pupils in the regular English program. (Author/RM)

Intermediate-level English as a second language students were examined for levels of reading comprehension. Half of each group (experimental and control) received more complete versions of test passages than the other half, and the experimental group was taught appropriate cultural background information between tests. Background knowledge did…

Presents a case study of a bilingual two-year-old, documenting his translation skills between the age of 1 year, 11 months and 2 years, 5 months. Argues that critical insights into child language may be gained through the examination of a child's linguistic abilities in cognitively demanding situations. (SED)

Describes research done to determine whether there is a statistical relationship between an English as a second language learner's ability to determine a word's morphemes or structural units and his/her ability to comprehend written English text. (SED)