This paper presents an approach to analyzing the process of second language acquisition, entitled Interlanguage Analysis (IA). IA regards the transitional linguistic system from the learner's first language (L1) to the target language (L2 to TL) as interlanguage (IL). IA seeks to obtain pedagogical implications by clarifying: (1) the types of…

An experiment combining listening comprehension training and error analysis was conducted with students at the English Language Institute, Queens College, the City University of New York. The purpose of the study was to investigate how to take learners who were primarily dependent on perceptive skills for comprehension and widen their…

When intermediate and advanced students of English as a second language (ESL) begin an English composition course, they face the task of creating logical extended discourses in English. Often, while the sentences they create are free from obvious grammatical errors, they are stylistically unacceptable, vague in meaning, misrepresentative of the…

Based on the premise that teaching basic writing involves first understanding what tends to go wrong when students write, a computer assisted system of error prediction and analysis was designed to improve college students' writing skills in both English and French. Students were to complete a sequenced series of writing assignments first in…

How does a computer analyze the appropriateness of a language student's response? Issues arising in the development and use of language-learning software are discussed. (MSE)

Analysis of "lesson" parts in English as a foreign language instructional materials revealed many problems, including: muddled text forms; lack of coherence; lack of completion; and confusing focus of text. (CB)

Discusses the theoretical basis, implementation, and pedagogical considerations of CALLE (Computer-Aided Language Learning Environment), a dialogue-based beginning Spanish language instruction system. CALLE uses Lexical Functional Grammar Theory to analyze errors in student input. Sample screen is shown. (Author/LMO)

Native and nonnative speakers' approaches to evaluating student errors are compared, and it is argued that the teacher's assessment is likely to be influenced by such factors as his/her own language competence, familiarity with the learners, teaching priorities, and syllabus as well as frequency and degree of linguistic deviance. (MSE)

Discusses some aspects of the Japanese language that look inexplicable at first but that turn out to be explainable by pragmatic principles shared with English. Focus is placed on how the Japanese choose a particular word to use in a sentence involving indirect quotations, when the words would be synonyms in other languages. (20 references) (GLR)

Outlines the practical use of concordance programs for analyzing written text produced in the second-language classroom, suggesting that concordancing of errors from both multi- and monolingual sources may provide a new way of analyzing errors and of helping language teachers to help students. (19 references) (Author/CB)

This article examines recent research in the areas of contrastive analysis (CA) and error analysis (EA) as they apply to second-language learning, focusing on redefinitions and modifications of the concepts of language "transfer,""error," and "native speaker." It argues that both CA and EA remain vital components of applied linguistics and…

In a study of error hierarchy, 10 native-speaker teachers of English and 10 non-native-speaker teachers evaluated 25 sentences containing 7 types of errors. It was concluded that error hierarchies are not inherent and "universal" but reflect the evaluators' own educational training. (Contains seven references.) (Author/LB)

Fluent Spanish-English bilinguals were asked to translate passages containing idioms into everyday conversational English. Results confirmed the use of knowledge of English to produce many idioms and the production of more idioms that were identical in both languages. (Contains 20 references.) (Author/LB)

Introduces the technique of computer-aided error analysis, a new approach to analyzing learner errors in second-language learning. Data used to demonstrate the technique consist of a 150,000-word corpus of English written by intermediate and advanced-level French-speaking learners. The study concludes that error analysis is worthwhile,…

Describes a new component called "Writing Error Analysis Model" (WEAM) in the CoCoA system for teaching writing composition in Japanese as a foreign language. The Weam can be used for analyzing learners' morphological errors and selecting appropriate compositions for learners' revising exercises. (Author/VWL)