Native English speakers have difficulty determining which form of direct address is appropriate in German, and students also need practice in giving commands to one another. This article describes an easily organized drill covering both areas. (Author/LB)

Given the lack of guidance for teachers regarding the role of explicit grammar instruction in the proficiency-oriented classroom, an experiment investigated how well students are able to read, learn, and use targeted grammar structures on their own. Results suggest they can learn certain kinds of linguistic structures anonymously, but others…

The effects of feedback (explicit correction) on the learning of morphological generalizations were studied in 79 adult native speakers of English with varying levels of proficiency in French. Among the findings was that the learning of absolute exceptions was more likely among advanced learners. (69 references) (Author/LB)

To address theoretical claims for the importance of negotiated interaction to the comprehension of second language (L2) input, different classroom interactional behaviors of L2 learners were compared. Results indicated that direct participation in negotiation was most effective in facilitating comprehension of less-advanced students; however, this…

A brief description of the English-language proficiency level expected of ninth-grade Israeli students introduces a tabular guide to various English readers, along with their basic vocabulary ranges. (LB)

Analysis of college Spanish students' processing of information under different conditions suggested that learners, and particularly early-stage learners, have great difficulty in attending to both form and content. (22 references) (Author/CB)

Discusses the treatment of idioms in language learning, specifically questions that need to be addressed when decisions are made on the role of idioms in language-learning programs. Particular emphasis is on the extent to which idioms present a particular source of misunderstanding and confusion for learners. (Author/VWL)

A feature shown to affect learners' performance on tests of spoken interaction is the gender of the person with whom the learner interacts. To test this hypothesis, 12 Japanese learners were interviewed, once by a man and once by a woman. Comparison of scores indicated that in all but one case the learners performed better when interviewed by a…

Describes a university English for academic purposes program that takes a focused approach to preparing nonnative-speaking students for academic writing and research across the university curriculum by developing proficiency with computers, library resources, and research methods. (Author/VWL)

Tracked the acquisition of 11 words over the course of a year for three adult learners with advanced proficiency in English. Four kinds of words were measured for knowledge: spelling, associations, grammatical information, and meaning. (Author/JL)

Attempts to reinterpret the threshold hypothesis, which states that low second language (L2) proficiency blocks the transfer of first language (L1) reading strategies to the reading of L2 texts. Results indicate that it is not only low foreign language proficiency but also text difficulty in terms of register complexity that negatively affect the…

Tests the hypothesis that there is no monotonic relationship between increasing competence in different linguistic domains and growth in second-language proficiency. The article concludes with an introduction to some assessment models that can accommodate discontinuous growth patterns. These models can describe and model a student's qualitative…

Explores effects of first-language verb-argument structure on English-as-a-Second-Language processing. Native Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Romance language speakers (all advanced English speakers) provided word-by-word reading times and gramaticality judgment data in self-paced reading tasks. Results suggest that reliable differences in parsing…

Examined the learning strategies used by 43 American learners of Arabic as a foreign language in their writing tasks. Learning strategies were assessed through a process of introspection. When composing, students wrote down all techniques and procedures used to perform the writing task. Results show both proficient and less proficient learners…

Describes a framework for examining the effects of the cognitive complexity of tasks on language production and learner perceptions of task difficulty, and for motivating sequencing decisions in task-based syllabuses. Results of a study of the relationship between task complexity, difficulty and production show that increasing the cognitive…