Rehabilitates teaching techniques that exploit both the meaning-driven and form-focused potential of reformulation and reconstruction tasks in English-as-a-Second-Language classes. Argues that the potential for focusing learners' attention on form has received little attention in instruction models. (30 references) (Author/CK)

Maternal ostensive naming was investigated in a cross-sectional study of 12 children. Display, demonstration, and pointing were coded with regard to whether and how coexisting speech referred to gesture focus. Maternal input was found to be significantly correlated with children's reported receptive vocabulary. (Author/JL)

This follow-up study of a classroom experiment with university English-as-a-Second-Language students that demonstrated incidental acquisition of new lexical knowledge through the reading of thematically-related texts explores how vocabulary knowledge may be acquired as a by-product of reading for comprehension. Findings are interpreted in terms of…

Considers the role of instruction, second language (L2) input, first language (L1) transfer, and universal grammar in development of L2 morphosyntactic knowledge. Specifically investigates the acquisition of the Spanish morpheme "se" by English-speaking adult learners. (Author/VWL)

Explored effects of interactional feedback on children's second language (L2) development in a prettest/posttest design. Child learners carried out communicative tasks that provided contexts for targeted forms and interactional feedback to occur. An experimental group received interactional feedback in response to non-targetlike production of…

This study is a continuation of an ethnographic study of a six-year-old Japanese child learning English as a Second Language. It is concluded that language transfer, overgeneralization, and simplification combined with natural development all worked together in the development of the subject's interlanguage, irrespective of the overwhelming input…

This study investigated the relationship among input, interaction, and second-language production among 16 native-nonnative dyads. The results indicated that both modified input and interaction initiated by the native speaker lead to greater comprehension by the nonnative speaker, as measured by task performance. (Contains 48 references.) (MDM)

Investigated whether beginning adult learners, given auditory stimuli, were equally likely to represent French gender subclasses using phonological, morphosyntactic, and/or semantic representations. Data from adult English speakers learning patterned French and translation equivalent lists indicated that the construct of input for gender learning…

Research published in recent years that deals with the Comprehension (Input) Hypothesis is reviewed, and evidence supporting the hypothesis is underlined. The research is from the areas of literacy development, second-language learning, and foreign-language learning and confirms the claim that development of language and literacy operate in much…

Looks at naturalistic samples of adult-to-child speech to determine whether variations in the input are consistent with reported variations in the proportions of nouns and verbs in children's early vocabularies. Naturalistic speech samples from English-, Italian-, and Mandarin-speaking children and their caregivers were examined. (Author/JL)

Focused on the role of subject-matter in second language (L2) learning. Sought to identify ways in which teachers modified classroom interaction about subject-matter content in order to assist the input, feedback, and production needs of L2 learners and to promote their attention to developmentally difficult relationships of L2 form and meaning…

Examines whether there is a strong relationship between second language learners' noticing of benefactive auxiliary verbs and their use in communication. Participants were university students who had acquired Japanese at home without receiving any formal instruction. Data were collected in face-to-face interviews, an interpretation task with 20…

Many recent generativist models attribute grammatical knowledge to young children on the basis that children's language patterns the same way as the target adult language. It has been proposed that the child acquires this knowledge early on in development by a process of parameter setting. Wexler (1996) presents the "Very Early Parameter Setting…

Informed by knowledge of linguistics, research findings in the areas of monolingual and bilingual acquisition, dyslexia and speech therapy clinical practice, five factors are proposed to argue that the acquisition of English by young non-native learners can be enhanced by learning activities which take into account factors of developmental…

Examines the effects of simplified input in early second language (L2) acquisition of English by experimentally manipulating language input to two groups of learners and then assessing their acquisition longitudinally within a controlled laboratory setting. Findings reveal that the dual task of acquiring vocabulary and grammar does not hinder…