Analysis of a writing lesson delivered to 22 children in their first year of school shows that instruction in grammar occurs without the use of a metalanguage for the concepts under instruction. Teacher control of knowledge through contingent question and answer is analyzed. (SLD)

Examined the validity of aural and oral self-report scales for determining the Fiji Hindi proficiency of new adolescent immigrants in New Zealand. Participants completed self-reports and performance tests (oral interviews, listening-comprehension tests, and vocabulary tests). Performance tests correlated strongly with self-reports. Respondents…

Reviews interlanguage pragmatics studies with a focus on learning in a liberal sense; in addition to studies with an explicit focus on development, investigations that examine the effect of proficiency as an independent variable on pragmatic performance are also considered. Two lines of inquiry are suggested for further research. (Author/VWL)

Leaders possess certain intelligences. They are linguistically gifted; they can tell good stories and usually can write well. They have strong interpersonal skills, have a good intrapersonal sense of their abilities, and can help others address existential questions and feel engaged in meaningful quests. However, intelligence is no guarantor of…

A study examined levels of learning strategy use in 149 Hong Kong university students of English-as-a-Second-Language, and the relationship to language proficiency, using the Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). The appropriateness of using SILL and proficiency measure in tandem to establish a clear relationship between strategy use…

Investigates the effect teachers trained with American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages oral proficiency interview-type training has on student performance, instructional methods, and classroom materials in the secondary foreign-language classroom. Results of teacher interviews and questionnaires supported the hypothesis that trained…

Discusses why culture should be taught in the foreign language classroom. Focuses on survival and cultural proficiency, background knowledge, the elements of culture that should be taught and how, the goals of teaching culture, conventions and social amenities, connotation, integrating culture in the foreign language curriculum, and techniques and…

Conducted a pilot study with learners of Spanish who had completed a 25-week basic language training at the Defense Language Institute's Foreign Language Center. Compared the listening and reading proficiency of 10 officers with 44 enlisted personnel, using t-tests and analysis of variance (with the Defense Language Proficiency Test as a…

Studied the impact of exposure to authentic video--a Spanish-language telenovela--on the second-language acquisition process of students studying Spanish at the university level. Measured the increase in listening comprehension that exposure to the soap opera would afford and tested the validity of the hypothesis that an increase in the quality…

Examined the effects of phonological memory and native-language (NL) literacy acquisition on learning English as a foreign language. Subjects were Finnish first graders, who were age 7 at the beginning of the study. Results suggest NL literacy is highly significant for foreign-language learning and that one way to promote foreign-language learning…

Investigated the relationships among three types of vocabulary knowledge (passive, controlled active, and free active) within the same individuals, taking four variables into consideration: passive vocabulary size, language learning context, second (L2) for foreign (FL), length of residence in L2 context, and, among the Canadians, knowledge of…

Examined the sixth year of a Japanese foreign language in the elementary school (FLES) program. Provides results from attitude surveys of children, teachers, and administrators; data on parental support for their children's learning of Japanese; proficiency ratings on an end-of-year prochievement interview; comparison of ratings of the cohort of…

This study examined one group of adults attempting to develop their heritage language to discover their motivation for studying the language and the challenges they encountered. Twenty-four Korean American students enrolled in beginning to advanced levels of Korean in one heritage language program were surveyed. (Author/JL)

Discusses the importance of appropriate proficiency-oriented testing for students studying foreign languages, explaining that grammatical accuracy is of no value if it cannot be used to carry out real-life tasks as an inherent and natural activity. Presents guidelines for designing and administering tests and provides an example of a…

Examines whether learners initiate attention to form, as requests for assistance, feedback on error, modeling, or repetitions, recasts, and requests for clarification. Results suggest that learners can and do attend to form, though relatively infrequently. The most frequent way they they do this is to request assistance from their teachers.…