Examines factors influencing language maintenance among secondary school students of Vietnamese ethnic background. Students' Vietnamese language ability and frequency of Vietnamese language use were evaluated and correlated with demographic, cultural, social, and attitudinal factors. Length of residence in Australia was more influential in…

Examines the current situation in China surrounding the teaching of French as a Foreign Language. After the decline of French teaching subsequent to the Cultural Revolution, the language returned to favor around 1970. Chinese students are infatuated with French; many study it as a first or second foreign language. Additionally, French literature…

In this study of German as a foreign language, formal classroom experience is compared with informal use of German outside the classroom focusing on three syntactic features: main clause word order (subject-verb-object, or SVO), topicalization (subject-verb inversion), and subordinate word order (subject-object-verb, or SOV). T tests and…

To investigate the speech of black college students for nonfluencies--linguistic elements breaking the flow of words or ideas--and to ascertain if students' attendance of a largely black or largely white university influenced their use of nonfluencies, 21 black students at a predominantly black university and 25 black students at a predominantly…

This report shows that verbal routines are not easily acquired by adult second language learners and it identifies some of the specific problems they have in acquiring routines. Empirical data concerning the role of verbal routines, (that is, fixed expressions which have been acquired as memorized wholes), in adult second language performance are…

The study had among its objectives (1) the determination of rural-urban differences in the use of Spanish and English by household heads and Spanish American children of these households, and (2) the relationships between language used by Spanish American household heads and selected socioeconomic factors. It was found that use of Spanish…

Investigation of the use of five speech markers in the native and second-language production of French-English bilinguals (N=10) found no quantitative difference in the frequency of occurrence of speech markers between the high (N=5) and low (N=5) fluency speakers, although high-fluency speakers used more progressive than regressive marker types.…

Relative proficiency in Gaelic varies by age in a Highland Scottish region where Gaelic is spoken by a decreasing number of bilinguals in a steadily aging population segment. Although proficiency ranges from full fluency (and Gaelic dominance) to minimal generative skills (and English dominance), there are also deviations at both extremes.…

Outlines a model for an inservice teacher training course in which language improvement is the central element, unlike more traditional English language teaching (ELT) programs for nonnative speakers, which emphasize ELT skills training, grammar, and phonology. In this model, the experience of language learning provides the input for skills…

Speaking a second language is probably the most difficult skill to test in that it involves a combination of skills that may have no correlation with each other, and which do not lend themselves to objective testing. In addition, what can be understood is a function of the listener's background and ability as well as those of the speaker. Another…

A study of advanced English learners' use or avoidance of English idioms is described. The investigation looked at whether the subjects would attempt to use English idioms in a translation task containing idioms, or would instead use non-idiomatic synonyms or paraphrase. It also looked at which idioms are used and which are avoided: those that are…

This Peace Corps volunteer language training manual is based on the experience of two pre-service trainings and was guided by the Peace Corps language training curriculum. The learning approach is competency-based or topic-oriented to provide survival competencies. Three main sections review phonetics, topics for discussion, and practical grammar…

To determine whether language behavior represents an early conditioned verbal response or whether it changes with age and experience was the purpose of this study which attempted to define unique isolates of language on the basis of actual language produced by young children. Tape recorded data were collected for 12 years from 211 children in…

A classroom research project in English-as-a-Second-Language vocabulary development, conducted in an English language school in Brazil, is described. The study had two major aims: to help students build a large lexicon for future use, and to encourage students to be responsible for their own learning by teaching strategies for learning vocabulary.…

A study of the process of bilingualization of second-generation immigrants to Catalonia, a region of Spain, is described and summarized. The study looks at the interrelationships between (1) linguistic context, all sources of messages in natural speech; (2) linguistic behavior, the real communicative use the individual makes of his expressive…