A study conducted in El Salvador was designed to: determine which kinds of errors may be most frequently committed by learners who have reached a basic level of proficiency: discover which high-frequency errors most impede comprehension; and develop a procedure for eliciting evaluational reactions to errors from native listeners. (SW)

A thorough revision of present syllabus-design practices is necessary to achieve the goal of enabling the learner to use the target language with relative fluency in simulated speech transactions. Four new orientations are suggested that lead more directly to language use than do monolithic and paradigm-oriented linguistic features. (Author/RM)

When the ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher discovers the reasons underlying student errors, error correction will become a positive learning experience for both student and teacher. (CFM)

A procedure involving dialogue and an oral paraphrase of a text is suggested as a means of developing communication skills. Student errors in communicative exchange compared with their errors in structural and prepared exercises, recurring sources of errors, and utilization of these sources in productive learning situations are discussed. (AMH)

The cognitive approach to foreign language teaching is discussed, and practical guidelines for classroom application of error analysis are presented. The cognitive approach seeks to develop a competence approximating that of native speakers without explicit reference to previously memorized material. (SW)

Some questions concerning foreign language learning and research topics are considered. One discussion question is why education and speech communication research has neglected the special case of second language communication as a source of information on the communication process in general. The need for research into the functional, operational…

This paper presents and illustrates a technique for analyzing the communicative effect of errors produced in spoken and written communication samples by students of English as a second language (ESL). First, a method is demonstrated for eliciting a representative communication sample of a student's speech or writing, using pictorial stimuli.…

This paper discusses the relative importance of formal language correctness in the hierarchy of the teacher's values, objectives, and criteria of evaluation. (Author/CFM)

Recommends using short nonsense texts, containing as many contradictions as possible, to further the students' acquisition of free-speaking competence. The nonsense sentences are to be corrected by the students, and are to be labeled: "practically impossible,""impossible in the context," or "strange." Four short nonsense texts are given. (IFS/WGA)

Secondary students of French interviewed a researcher posing as a French speaker. Error patterns and structures used were analyzed. Many errors were apparently due to interference; many others were apparently the result of reduction processes. Results suggested that errors might be corrected in terms of comprehensibility to a native speaker.…

This paper discusses the meaning of the term "lexical simplification" in the context of second language acquisition. It is suggested that simplification be viewed as a universal feature of language use which may be manifested in a number of linguistic contexts, including the creation of a learner's interlanguage. It is further suggested…

This article discusses error correction in the writing and speaking of foreign language learners. If it is decided that student errors should be corrected, should all errors be corrected or only particular ones? How should errors be corrected, when, and by whom? (CFM)

This study examined the most frequent communicative and linguistic errors made by 24 intermediate ESL students, and determined the effect of direct teacher correction upon these students' writing proficiency. Students were identified as having high or low communicative proficiency and were randomly assigned to one of two error correction…

This article explains, with specific examples, some of the newer audiolingual and cognitive approaches to the teaching of English as a second language (ESL). It is suggested that several of these methods can be integrated into an eclectic approach. Situational Reinforcement and the Audiovisual-Structural-Global Method are among the audiolingual…

This paper reviews the history of contrastive analysis (CA) against the background of its objectives and its present problems and presents an outline of procedures which seem to be necessary to make the methods meet the objectives of applied CA. CA in the United States was closely connected with structuralism, which was an obvious cause for later…