Examines a task that can be applied in a uniform fashion across different languages to compare levels of vocabulary development in foreign-language learning. Results indicate that the lexical decision task can be a useful tool for the assessment and cross-linguistic comparison of lexical development in foreign-language learning. (37 references)…

Examines language in an initial teacher training course and shows how trainees' awareness can be raised by looking at samples of the way they use it themselves. (five references) (Author/CK)

Investigates effects of second-language acquisition age, length of exposure to the second language, and Japanese language specificity on the bilingual dual coding hypothesis proposed by Paivio and Desrochers (1980). Balanced Japanese-English bilingual returnee (having resided in an English-speaking country) subjects were presented with pictures to…

Reports a study of listening problems encountered in the English-as-a-foreign-language classroom in the English for Specific Purposes Centre at Damascus University in Syria. Looks particularly at learner strategies, features of the listening text, characteristics of the speaker, attitudes of the listener, the task to be completed as a result of…

Examines the performance of Hungarian secondary school students on two types of unscripted tasks--an argument task and a narrative task. Focuses on grammatical patterns of learner language, and reports significant differences in the learners' performance. (Author/VWL)

Compared the English and French reading comprehension and inferencing skills of U.S. college students enrolled in an introductory French literature course. Participants each read two different texts--one in English and the other in French--by the same 18th century author, recalled them in writing, and did a multiple choice task on selected…

Research in first language and second language (L2) comprehension has demonstrated that both learner and input variables contribute to the ease with which a message is understood. Questions remain, however, as to how these variables affect the way L2 learners process linguistic form during comprehension. This study examines how one learner…

This paper reports on a study of the efficiency of interactive tasks at eliciting targeted morpho-syntactic structures from child speakers of English as a Second Language (ESL). Two groups of subjects between 7 and 10 years of age were examined, one group with various first language backgrounds, and a second which used Spanish as their first…

Data from 27 subjects--children acquiring Swedish as their first language (L1), adult immigrants acquiring Swedish as their second language (L2), and adult Swedish controls--were used to investigate narrative structure in child L1 and adults L2. Narratives were elicited through a picture story task. (30 references) (Author/JP)

Implicit negative feedback has been shown to facilitate SLA, and the extent to which such feedback is given is related to a variety of task and interlocutor variables. The background of a native speaker (NS), in terms of amount of experience in interactions with nonnative speakers (NNSs), has been shown to affect the quantity of implicit negative…

This study investigates raters' identification of errors in the writing of an EFL student. Drawing on data collected from a correction task and a questionnaire, we examine the beliefs and practices of three distinct groups of 16 participants in each: native English speaking EFL teachers, Japanese speaking EFL teachers and educated native English…

It is argued that while task-centered assessment of second language learning has the strong support of teachers and learners, focuses on language as a tool rather than as an end in itself, and fosters learning, there remain some problems with its use. Further work must be done to develop assessment criteria that reflect current theories of…

This article describes and analyzes a task-based exercise in a college-level English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) class. This exercise required the learners to participate in the exchange of information and the accomplishment of one particular goal--in this case the construction of a Web page in English. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches…

Analyzes tasks designed for teaching and shows how the analysis can be used to develop tasks for teacher training. The ideas presented are derived from observations and recordings from an in-service teacher development project in elementary classrooms in Malta and Norway and in secondary classrooms in Britain. (eight references) (Author/CK)

Explored the effects of a number of affective and social variables on learners' engagement in oral argumentative tasks. The assumption underlying the investigation was that students' verbal behavior in oral task situations is partly determined by a number of nonlinguistic and non-cognitive factors whose examination may constitute a potentially…