Different linguistic classifications of Spanish and Slovak make the differences between these two languages. The genetic criterion classifies languages, clustering them into language families, the largest among which is the Indoeuropean one. The typological criterion divides languages according to their grammatical structures. Meanwhile, Slovak is…

Adjective- noun order errors are a common occurrence throughout all levels of English language students. Based on professional experiences, existing literature and revisiting what some may consider archaic methodologies, this reflective article aims to analyse adjective-noun order errors among Colombian learners of English, understand why it…

The reversal error is a prevalent phenomenon that consists of reversing the relationship between two variables when writing equations from comparison in verbal language. A study with 169 Basque/Spanish bilingual pre-service teachers examined whether this error is mainly due to the students' tendency to employ a direct-translation strategy based on…

Knowledge of the target specialized language should be of use to English for specific purposes teachers who teach pronunciation. Knowledge of the target learners' first language (L1) should also be useful when these teachers use contrastive analysis, error analysis or interlanguage theory. However, as far as teaching the pronunciation of the…

The following work tries to analyze the possible fossilization errors of the students when acquiring a second foreign language. For this purpose, two languages have been chosen: maternal (Spanish) and foreign (English). In the present work we have examined the effects of the Spanish language and the English language when learning another language…

Studies of second language learning have revealed a connection between first language transfer and errors in second language production. This paper describes an action research study carried out among Chilean university students studying English as part of their degree programmes. The study focuses on common lexical errors made by Chilean…

Extensive studies have been conducted regarding mother tongue (L1) interference and developing English writing skills. This study, however, aims to investigate the influence of the Spanish language on second language (L2) writing skills at several Ecuadorian senior high schools in Loja. To achieve this, 351 students and 42 teachers from second…

Bilinguals report more tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) failures than monolinguals. Three accounts of this disadvantage are that bilinguals experience between-language interference at (a) semantic and/or (b) phonological levels, or (c) that bilinguals use each language less frequently than monolinguals. Bilinguals who speak one language and sign another…

Whether words are or are not activated within the lexicon of the nonused language is an important question for accounts of bilingual word production. Prior studies have not led to conclusive results, either because alternative accounts could be proposed for their findings or because activation could have been artificially induced by the…

Presents study involving university Spanish students testing predictive power of contrastive analysis in terms of accuracy of predicted hierarchy for persistence of phonological errors. Results show problems involving allophone use or nonuse are more persistent than those involving phoneme use or nonuse, and the degree of difficulty of a sound…

Presents three interrelated theses on the mechanisms underlying developmental and transfer errors, and exemplifies these with reference to a number of English L2 developmental structures. Proposes a framework where linguistic factors play a major role in protracting the restructuring of the preverbal negation rule by Spanish learners. (Author/MES)

Productive errors in the Spanish of 3 Spanish-speaking children and 115 adults learning Spanish as a second language are analyzed. The errors are organized into three categories--lexical, morphological, and syntactic--and each category is further divided according to the type of cognitive error-processing strategy shown: simplification, reduction…

Spanish-speaking learners of Portuguese often transfer features of Spanish language to Portuguese. Learner errors, including those caused by Spanish interference, are analyzed by contrasting Portuguese and Spanish grammar. (SW)

Rhyming tests have historically been used in the education system to assess reading readiness. English language learners (ELLs) have consistently scored poorly on these assessment tools. The current article examines a possible reason for this poor performance by ELLs. Specifically, the authors examined the relationship between semantic…

Argues against the grammatical accuracy hypothesis. Test results of second-language students taught by Krashen's Natural Approach are compared to results from those taught by the grammar-translation method. No advantage is found in using the traditional method, and the expectation that students can become fluent speakers of a second language in…