The "Production Effect" (PE) refers to a memory advantage for items studied aloud over items studied silently. Thus, vocalizing may serve as a mnemonic that can be used to assist learners in improving their memory for new concepts. Although many other types of mnemonic have been suggested in the literature, the PE seems especially…

An important problem verb learners must solve is how to extend verbs. Children could use cross-situational information to guide their extensions; however, comparing events is difficult. In 2 studies, researchers tested whether children benefit from initially seeing a pair of similar events ("progressive alignment") while learning new…

The use and understanding of ordinal terms (e.g., "first" and "second") is a developmental milestone that has been relatively unexplored in the preschool age range. In the present study, 4- and 5-year-olds watched as a reward was placed in one of three train cars labeled by the experimenter with an ordinal (e.g.,…

Despite the common intuition that labeling may be the best way to teach a new word to a child, systematic testing is needed of the prediction that children learn words better from labeling utterances than from directive utterances. Two experiments compared toddlers' label learning in the context of hearing words used in directive versus labeling…

In the present study, we examine the effects of prompts and recasts on the acquisition of two new and different grammar structures in a task-based learning environment. Sixty-four 14-year-old 9th grade students (low intermediate) learning German as a foreign language were randomly assigned to three conditions: two experimental groups (one…

The present study investigated second language (L2) learners' acquisition of automatic word recognition and the development of L2 orthographic representation in the mental lexicon. Participants in the study were Japanese university students enrolled in a compulsory course involving a weekly 30-minute sustained silent reading (SSR) activity with…

In the current study we investigate whether 2- and 3-year-old German children use intonation productively to mark the informational status of referents. Using a story-telling task, we compared children's and adults' intonational realization via pitch accent (H*, L* and de-accentuation) of New, Given, and Contrastive referents. Both children and…

The purpose of this study was to describe the level of language maturity and the effect of a preschool language program on the language development of urban, Southern 4-year-olds. The 147 subjects (57 lower status blacks, 40 lower status whites, and 50 upper status whites) all participated in five-day per week prekindergarten programs. Dependent…

The author records her experiment with her daughter from birth to the age of four and a half to determine whether a child in a monolingual environment could grow up speaking two languages. The record traces the child's development in both English and French. (MF)

Revised version of a paper presented at the TESOL Convention, March 1971, New Orleans, La. (VM)

The goal of this research is to determine the relevant factors that aid in the acquisition of the perfective aspect in Russian. Results confirm the findings of previous research, which say that aspect is not learned as a uniform category, but rather interrelates with the acquisition of Aktionsarten. This study focuses on the factors responsible…

Of the original number of Alaskan natives entering the University of Alaska from rural and urban areas, 50% drop out at the end of their freshman year, and less than 2% are likely to receive a degree at the end of 4 years. This high attrition rate is caused by poor elementary and secondary school preparation, and strong personal feelings of…

THE ACTIVITIES OF THE RACINE, WISCONSIN, R/I UNITS INCLUDED A CREATIVITY STUDY, LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT EXPERIMENTS, TWO EXPERIMENTS IN INDIVIDUALIZING HANDWRITING, AN ANALYSIS OF THE EFFECTS OF INCREASED HOME-SCHOOL CONTACT ON PARENT ATTITUDE AND STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT, THREE EXPERIMENTS IN INDIVIDUALIZED ARITHMETIC INSTRUCTION, AND RESEARCH AND…

This paper considers language development among children and discusses the influence of the learning environment in the acquisition of language use as distinct from language structure. The results of the five studies reported here suggest that the child is aided by what he is encouraged to say, not simply by what he hears, and that adults seem to…