In response to the plateau of achievement advanced English-as-a-Second-Language students often reach, where they see little need for improvement, an instructor developed a program to help these students apply and improve writing skills outside of the immediate academic context. (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)

Focuses on the career self-efficacy of the large Latino population in the United States. Acculturation and English language-use predicted career self-efficacy, unlike years of U. S. residency, age, and educational level. Implications for career counseling for Latinos are discussed. (EMK)

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…

Proposes a text-driven method for the deletion procedure in cloze passages. An appropriate passage for the proficiency level of the subjects was developed, with the standard cloze and eight different versions. Results suggest that this method is superior to the fixed-ratio deletion method on some grounds and that the differences among subjects'…

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…

Examined the relation between language competence and self-competence among 3-4 year olds, using the Preschool Language Assessment Inventory. Found that children's perception of self-competence is influenced by their language competence. The finding that linguistically complex items may not be completely understood by children with low-average…

Examines the possible role of maturational constraints on first language acquisition and second language learning. Reviews research on the special circumstances of delayed first language acquisition and the effects of age on second language learning. Suggests that ability to attain native-speaker grammatical competence may diminish long before…

To expand cognitive knowledge, increase language competency, and promote active learning, a content instructor and a language professor collaborated to develop a final unit in which teams of Japanese college sophomores, studying in a 10-month program in the United States, teach their classmates in English about a topic of interest concerning…