Examined why adults learning second languages make frequent errors in lexical form. More and less fluent bilinguals in English and Spanish performed a translation recognition task in which they had to decide whether the second of two words was the correct translation of the first. Less fluent participants experienced more interference for…

Three studies investigated how 24-month-olds and adults resolve temporary ambiguity in fluent speech when encountering prenominal adjectives potentially interpretable as nouns. Children were tested in a looking-while-listening procedure to monitor the time course of speech processing. In Experiment 1, the familiar and unfamiliar adjectives…

Infants prefer to listen to happy speech. To assess influences of speech affect on early lexical processing, 7.5- and 10.5-month-old infants were familiarized with one word spoken with happy affect and another with neutral affect and then tested on recognition of these words in fluent passages. Infants heard all passages either with happy affect…

This article examines the question: Do lexical, syntactic, fluency, and discourse measures of oral language collected under narrative conditions predict reading achievement both within and across languages for bilingual children? More than 1,500 Spanish-English bilingual children attending kindergarten-third grade participated. Oral narratives…

Two experiments sought to extend the demonstration of English-learning infants' abilities to segment nouns from fluent speech to a new lexical class: verbs. Moreover, we explored whether two factors previously shown to influence noun segmentation, stress pattern (strong-weak or weak-strong) and type of initial phoneme (consonant or vowel), also…

Recently, tasks have been advocated for their role in promoting participation in L2 interaction and the provision and use of feedback by language learners (Bygate, M., Skehan, P., Swain, M. (Eds.), 2001. "Researching Pedagogical Tasks: Second Language Learning, Teaching and Testing." Pearson Education, Harlow). The relationship between various…

In this study, Turkish EFL students' conceptualization of an effective English language teacher is studied. A survey formerly developed by Yu-Hsin (1999) was adapted and administered to 100 foreign language learners studying at two state universities' English language preparatory schools. Also, participants' written responses were collected to…

This digest provides useful information on starting an elementary school foreign language (FLES) program. Individual sections address the following: (1) cautions in planning a FLES program; (2) initiating the planning process; (3) designing the program, with special attention given to scheduling and language choice; (4) programs that lead to high…

Guidelines for Hebrew language proficiency are presented in two companion volumes which are identical except that one gives examples of various linguistic forms in Hebrew and the other provides them in Roman script. These guidelines are based on the generic guidelines published in 1986 by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages.…

Study abroad is not a frill of the foreign language major's curriculum, but rather a component that is crucial to the linguistic preparation of a successful language teacher. During the study abroad experience, the student can obtain the ability to use the language freely and spontaneously, thus helping create an atmosphere of excitement and…

The use of two types of commercially available Apple computer educational software in English for the development of accuracy and fluency in students of English as a second language is described. One type of program is aimed at the drilling and practice of grammar in English. Some of these programs have interesting formats and allow the teacher to…

It is proposed that a speech-dynamic analysis of oral fluency phenomena serves best to highlight the nondiscrete nature of the sound stream and to capture English syllable structure. Some current concepts and practices in oral testing are criticized, and previously neglected evidence concerning temporal variables in speech, automatic speech…

The decision of whether to use French or English in Montreal, Canada, is not always predetermined but must be negotiated by the interactants in conversation in ways that can be serious or humorous and have great potential for misunderstanding. The complex relationship between language choice and ethnicity is one factor involved in the decision…

A study was conducted to compare the communication apprehension levels of Puerto Rican college students with those of United States college students. The Puerto Rican students were considered bilingual, having received instruction in English as a second language for most of their school years. In the first phase of the study, 341 students who…

Language teaching methodology has been changing over a period of time. The teacher-centered approach is gradually giving way to learner-centered approach. Until a decade ago, the role of the teacher was that of a constant donor of knowledge and corrector of learner errors. But, the paradigms are shifting and teacher roles are altering. The teacher…