In this pilot study looking at interlanguage prosody, normal, and contrastively focused constructions in English were collected from four English-as-a-first-language speakers and four Japanese-as-a-first-language speakers. These productions were then played to six native English speakers to see how well they could identify the stress placement of…

The domain of second language reading is a rich source for insights into bilingual cognitive processing. Most cross-language transfer research has been carried out on acquisition and production of second-language (L2) structures. Relatively little work has been done on cross-language transfer in bilingual reading. An overreliance on top-down,…

This paper focuses on second language (L2) acquisition, and the extent to which Universal Grammar (UG) accounts for second language learners' behavior. A comparison of L2 research, especially research conducted within the UG framework, with first language (L1) research, reveals a striking difference in the evaluation of L2 results: while L1…

A study examined the varying degrees to which learners of Spanish at the intermediate and advanced levels use paragraph-like structure in their answers during a simulated oral proficiency exam. Subjects were 24 students preparing for the Spanish Texas Oral Proficiency Test. Data from simulated oral proficiency interviews were compared to a model…

A study investigated whether second language (L2) learners' participation in negotiation with native speakers (NSs) meets their needs for data on L2 lexical and structural features. The question was addressed through an analysis of NS utterances of negotiation that were produced as 20 native speaker-non-native speaker (NS-NNS) dyads carried out…

A discussion of communicative interaction focuses on the knowledge needed to achieve politeness in different languages, especially how that body of knowledge differs across languages and can be taught in foreign language instruction. It is noted that oral communication must accommodate the existing social order by use of appropriate registers.…

The expression of modal meanings presents a difficulty even for advanced speakers of a foreign language and it has been shown that beginning and intermediate learners produce few modal auxiliaries. To investigate the phenomenon, a functional/semantic framework was used to determine what forms these students use to convey a particular meaning. The…

A study is made of ways in which three children forgot a foreign language in which they had been immersed. Specifically considered are whether the last things learned are the first things forgotten, and whether forgetting entails unlearning in reverse order from the original learning process. (Author/RM)

A link between the acquisition of native-like second language pronunciation ability and certain personality constructs, such as empathy, is asserted. The influence of language on person and person on language is investigated. (Author/RM)

A study is reported investigating whether reported sequence of acquisition of grammatical morphemes for second language learners would be found to exist in tasks other than that requiring speech production. (Author/RM)

Assesses the status of English as a second language teaching in Canada. Focuses on a broad discussion of four areas; programs, cultural adjustment, research and experimentation, and professionalism. (PMP)

This paper suggests that research in applied linguistics in Great Britain has recently had little impact on the learning and teaching of foreign languages and that new priorities for relevant research in second language learning and teaching need to be proposed. The objective of the new research would be to ensure that language skills be available…

Recent research findings that have potential application or are already contributing to the refinement of educational practice in bilingual education include developments in language research, teacher effectiveness research, and ethnography. In language research, these contributions include work on the need for and types of language proficiency,…

This study examined input enhancement and second language (L2) vocabulary learning while exploring the role of "distinctiveness," the degree to which an item in the input diverges from the form in which other items in the input are presented, with regard to the nature and direction of the effects of enhancement. In this study,…

An informal diagnostic spelling test of Hebrew as a second language was constructed and administered to 30 students, 8 boys and 22 girls, in a Jewish middle and high school. As evidenced by the subjects in this study, spelling errors in Hebrew tended to centralize in four areas: (1) the spelling patterns according to grammatical and phonetic…