Investigates to what extent ESL learners' syntactic errors in written communication cause comprehension breakdown. The variables considered are the omission, insertion, and wrong choice of articles and connectors. Results indicated that errors concerning connectors cause communication breakdown more often than do errors in article usage. (PMJ)

Discusses techniques that facilitate student learning, conserve instructor time, provide a rationale for course and materials design, and increase inter-rater reliability. Includes suggestions for providing for student differences, determining what to teach and when, and saving time in grading compositions. (PMJ)

Describes weaknesses in the sociolinguistic competence of second-language (L2) learners as documented by research in immersion contexts. The article discusses findings with reference to adolescent native speakers' use of question forms, conditionals, and second-person pronouns across two levels of formality in written and oral productions. (48…

Investigates the effects of awareness, or lack thereof, on 32 adult second or foreign language learners' subsequent intake and written production of targeted Spanish morphological forms. Think-aloud protocol data were used to measure awareness or lack of it, and morphological learning was assessed by the learners' performances on two postexposure…

Analyzes the metadiscourse in persuasive essays written by university students studying English as a Second Language at a midwestern university. Results indicate that skilled writers are aware of their readers' needs and control the strategies for making their texts accessible to the reader, whereas poor writers cannot generate considerate texts.…

To study the adequacy of the brief oral examination format as a basis for assessing oral skills, the study compared samples of 15-minute oral exams with 3-hour written exam results by the same students. The resultant average size of oral samples was about 77% of that of written samples, with good comparability, leading to useful conclusions about…

A rationale is presented for improving the curricular design of intermediate- or advanced-level writing classes for foreign language majors. Seven practical guidelines include the following: the writing course should have its own place in the curriculum but should not stand alone as the sole undergraduate writing experience in the second language.…

Examination of examples of "Nigerian English" in novels by two prominent Nigerian authors reveals such linguistic behavior as translating directly from Nigerian languages, stressing least effort and economy of expression, incorporating sociocultural logic and imperatives of the Nigerian environment, and displaying "hypercorrected…

The effects of a French tutorial with spoken feedback, written feedback, written/spoken feedback, and no feedback were examined with 56 undergraduates using a Macintosh computer. Results supported the hypothesis that students receiving written/spoken feedback perform better than those in the other three feedback categories. (eight references)…

Suggests that because the new methodological emphasis in intermediate-level foreign-0language courses has shifted from translation-based learning, which utilized literary texts extensively, to communication-based learning, literature has been overlooked as a viable tool of instruction. Argues that this shift does not allow students to develop an…

A study involving 16 Japanese young men (half with deafness) and 16 Irish young men (half with deafness) found that the Japanese men who were deaf outscored their English-language counterparts in memory for abstract design, due to prolonged use of a highly visual writing system. (Contains references.) (Author/CR)

Describes an approach to the study of writing processes based on the analysis of temporal aspects of the writing event. The approach involves recording the keystroke presses made during production of a text using a word processor, and analyzing such features as pausing, fluency, and revision activity. (Author/VWL)

Reports on an empirical study of the politeness strategies in Chinese business correspondence and considers its implications in teaching business Chinese. The study investigated 20 examples of business correspondence by native speakers of Chinese. By analyzing linguistic/stylistic features of the letters in two predesigned situations, the study…

Four classes of bilingual children from Grades 3 and 5, speakers of Spanish and Nahuatl, participated in a study of literacy development focused on interlinguistic transfer and the application of narrative schemata as seen in writing samples produced in both languages. Reports on a methodological approach seen to be effective in eliciting…

Uses the foreign language autobiography to explore the perceptions of a group of adult foreign language learners toward a broad range of issues related to classroom atmosphere and instruction. Qualitative analysis of student writings revealed three categories of data: classroom interaction, perceived level of success, and attributions of success…