Addresses issue of whether free voluntary reading (FVR) is appropriate for programs whose primary goal is development of academic second-language competence, such as university-level programs for international students. Argues that FVR does have a place in these programs, even though FVR often means reading light fiction; competence gained via FVR…

Explores the conflicting cultural perspectives associated with studying English, drawing on two studies of Mexican students. P. Ryan (1994) studied the perceptions of culture related to language learning for six college teachers and their urban students. N. Francis (1994) studied the perceptions of rural bilingual (Spanish/Nahuatl) elementary…

This article discusses the history of the use of computers for research and instruction in classics, highlighting the use of mainframe applications, microcomputers, multimedia, CD-ROMs, Web-based research tools, and the construction of VirtualRome online. Describes recent development efforts in this area and examines trends revealed by this…

Examines whether negotiation addresses the need of second- language (L2) learners to focus attention on L2 form. The study analyzed the utterances of negotiation produced as 20 English native speaker-nonnative speaker (NS-NNS) dyads engaged in communication tasks. Negotiation assisted the NNS needs for data on features that were possible in the…

Analyzes data on the acquisition of German by Italian and Spanish speakers. Findings reveal that children learning a first language and adults learning a second language build up syntactic structure in much the same manner, and propose that the weak continuity approach of language acquisition accounts for all instances of syntactic acquisition.…

Analyzes the mental organizations of two sets of fuzzy lexical items by 70 native speakers (NSs) of English and 185 learners of English as a Second Language (ESL). Findings suggest that a discernible approximative pattern exists in the acquisition of ESL semantics, with the differentiation of certain words acquired before the differentiation of…

Investigates the relationship between French instruction and the phenomena of discontinued lexical development, lexical attrition, and lexical deficiency in the speech of Mauritanians. Findings indicate native-language lexical deficiency was reflected in code switching, and subjects (Ss) with low native-language fluency code switched more than Ss…

Outlines the rationale for a multimedia application of the novel "Mathilde Mohring" and describes the structure of a multimedia program and the functions of its individual components, which includes a segment on the different editions of the novel, digitized motion video sequences and stills, and supplemental multimedia materials such as…

Examines how the demographic values of foreign travel, previous foreign-language learning, major field of study, and other factors affect students' beliefs about the study of German. The article focuses on student-perceived improvement in the four skills and cultural knowledge, student motivation, and the expected contributions of teachers and…

Examines the generalizability of claims about the implicit learning of artificial grammars to the context of adult second-language acquisition (SLA). Specifically addressed are claims that implicit learning is more effective than explicit learning when the stimulus domain is complex, and explicit learning of simple and complex stimulus domains is…

Focuses on factors influencing the mastery of a foreign language and one's native tongue. Both the child-mother relationship and the teacher-student relationship greatly influence the desire and propensity of an individual to acquire fluency in the language being taught. To learn to speak signifies a wish to use a language and become immersed in…

Assesses the speaking, reading, listening, and writing proficiency of students of Russian after one, two, three, four, and five years of study using tests based on the proficiency scale of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Results indicate that the correlations among the four skills were not strong, suggesting that they…

Examines the affective dimension of second-language comprehension by analyzing a transcript from a case study in which children conversed about their engagement with stories. Findings suggest that texts may be understood in the informational sense without true comprehension of meaning at the affective level. Implications for classroom practice are…

Early childhood classrooms characterized by a predominance of second-language learners have emerged in unprecedented numbers. This article examines a model of peer collaboration to take into account how children's evolving social relationships served as an impetus for talk in English. Implications for research and practice are discussed. (Author)

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…