Presents results of two case studies involving the acquisition of English in a natural environment, as well as the results of two judgment tests in which subjects were asked to judge the grammaticality of sentences containing both correctly and incorrectly used dative verbs. (SL)

Discusses a study of the relative benefits of a year-long reading comprehension course for English as a foreign language students, compared with an intensive summer course using the same curriculum. Students were separated into groups according to their language abilities. Although improvement in both cases was nearly equal, the summer course is…

Presents data which indicate that the language learning capability of adolescents and adults who are acquiring a second language differs from that of children who are acquiring their native language. Discusses consequences for second-language teaching methodology. (EKN)

Contends that second-language reading comprehension should be investigated using adult bilingual readers reading authentic materials in their first and second languages and should focus on the process rather than the product. Examines reading strategies of eight Chinese graduate students at a Canadian university. Suggests that students used the…

Summarizes Hillock's findings regarding first-language composition instruction and compares them to research into second-language composition instruction. The article discusses implications for teaching writing to English-as-a-Second-Language students and recommends a process/product, task-based approach to writing instruction. (20 references)…

Studied differences in language gain in French among two groups of students, those who studied abroad and those who remained at home to study in the college classroom. Six nonteacher native speakers compared the oral and written fluency of both groups of students. Results show the context of language learning is a factor in what oral and written…

Examines the effect annotation type has on second language incidental vocabulary retention in a multimedia reading setting. Compared three annotation types: text-only, picture-only, and a combination of the two. Indicates the combination group outperformed the text-only and picture-only groups on the immediate tests. There was significant…

Compares the attitudes towards divided or debatable usages between Hong Kong teachers and their students. Data were collected via elicitation tests. Findings showed significant differences between teachers' and students' attitudes towards debatable usages. (Author/VWL)

This corpus-based study compares the use of metaphor in the reporting of the Euro in the English and German financial press during a period of turbulent financial trading. While the approach to metaphor is broadly cognitive linguistic, metaphors are identified using two criteria; a broad semantic one that includes cases of reification and…

Describes a quantitative study that compared the performance of two groups of advanced English-as-a-Second-Language students in a second semester composition course at the City University of New York (CUNY). Results suggest that students were twice as likely to pass into the second semester course when they were evaluated by portfolio rather than…

Analyzes the differences in usage of the Spanish preterite and imperfect by native speakers of Spanish and by nonnative speakers of Spanish whose first language is Dutch. Teaching strategies to enhance the learner's awareness of context and sequencing are suggested. (LMO)

An English discourse completion questionnaire consisting of 60 situations designed to elicit suggestions in English was administered to 28 native speakers of Chinese or Malay and to 12 native speakers of American English. Non-native speakers of English were more direct in their responses. Native and non-native speakers significantly differed in…

Replication of research on the relationship between universal grammar (UG) and second language learning studied Arabic-speaking learners of English. The present study's findings contradicted the previously supported theory regarding the importance of universal grammar to second language learning. (38 references) (CB)

A validation study of the "semi-direct" Chinese Speaking Test (CST) directly compared college students' performance on the test with their performance on the "live" language proficiency interview. CST provided scoring results largely equivalent to those of the live interview, although examinees perceived CST to be more…

An earlier study of the sources of native speakers' perception of incoherence in English text produced by nonnative speakers was extended. Eighty subjects were tested using microcomputers rather than paper-and-pencil and again showed a strong effect for miscues and less significant effect for order of ideas. (Contains 32 references.) (Author/LB)