Three measure of English language proficiency (a partial dictation [Cloze] test, a text-reading and recollection test, and a story-telling test) were administered to three groups of college-level students (Finns, Swedish-Finns, and Swedes). The results are analyzed in several articles presented here: (1) "The Comprehension of Function Words…

This investigation examined the acquisition of five complex English syntactic structures by Egyptian and Israeli adult learners at different levels of proficiency. Carol Chomsky's methodology, as adapted by d'Anglejan and Tucker, served to assess comprehension of these structures. The responses of the Egyptians and Israelis, which were similar to…

This paper reports on a study undertaken to investigate the relationship between elicited imitation data and comprehension data, as measured by a picture-identification task and a second language (L2) to first language (L1) translation task, and between elicited imitation data and production data, as measured by a spontaneous production task and…

Progress in the teaching of oral comprehension depends partly on the isolation of factors which block comprehension. Research in conjunction with an experimental course in English as a second language led to the definition of errors due to: (1) insufficient knowledge of the language and the cultural context of its use, and (2) a failure to…

A general model for second language learning is proposed in this paper. First, this model aims to describe different components (input, intake, integration, output) of the learning process in terms of the information (explicit/implicit, linguistic/sociolinguistic) to which the learner is exposed. Secondly, the model serves to identify the stages,…

The text and accompanying workbook are designed to help second language teachers explore theories of language teaching and learning, deriving a set of hypothesized principles for classroom teaching based on the concept of proficiency and suggesting classroom techniques using them. The first two chapters outline and expand on both theoretical and…