This study of second language learning investigated the effects of a written reading comprehension exercise and an oral discussion activity as alternative tasks mediating between a written text and learners' summaries of the text. Subjects were 80 University of Hong Kong freshmen, randomly assigned to three groups. Each group was provided a…

Questioning the notion of a sensitive period for second language acquisition, this research examined students' interlanguage development in selected classes at two grades in early, middle, and late French immersion. These classes were administered the same verb tense tests: an oral elicited imitation test and written rational cloze test. Analysis…

The purpose of this manual, which accompanies a video program, is to provide general background information for foreign language teachers who are, or soon will be, teaching in total, partial, or two-way immersion classrooms. Part of a series of video programs, this manual highlights current theories, issues, and questions about second language…

The emerging field of literacy education for speakers of English as a Second Language (ESL) is examined. First, four general goals of ESL literacy education are outlined: practical reading/writing skills; reading skills for building further learning; second language training when needed; and orientation to print as a source of meaning. Four kinds…

This second of three manuals providing a functional curriculum for students with disabilities focuses on the development of nonverbal and oral communication skills. An introductory chapter provides an overview of the curriculum and offers guidelines for developing instructional plans for the following two units of study. Unit 1 considers the…

This paper considers four levels of analysis in the observation of the prosodic features of pause in speech: phonetic; syntactic; semantic; and informative. On the phonetic level, a pause is related to length and intonation, and intonation in turn, being a result of the speaker's meaning, constitutes an expression of his/her emotional state. On…

This article discusses the expression of gratitude in spoken English by Japanese and American college students in the United States. Five hypotheses were tested: (1) Advanced non-native speakers would find expressing gratitude difficult in the target language; (2) A verbal expression of regret would occur whenever the Japanese speaker believes he…

This volume of working papers in psycholinguistics, from the "MITA Psycholinguistics Circle", contains the following articles: "Some Problems in the Acquisition of Derived Nouns" (Mika Endo); "World Knowledge in Children's Sentence Comprehension" (Yuki Hirose); "Examining the Including and Excluding Roles of…

This activities book illustrates how teachers can use teaching methods and strategies to build children's language arts skills as well as create a stimulating, enriched environment. The activities in the book include many opportunities for the integration of the language arts across the curriculum. Because of the growing demand for…

Previous literature on classroom testing of second language speech skills provides several models of both task types and rubrics for rating, and suggestions regarding procedures for testing speaking with large numbers of learners. However, there is no clear, widely disseminated consensus in the profession on the appropriate paradigm to guide the…

The rubrics are designed for productive use (speaking and writing) of English and Spanish in two-way bilingual immersion programs. The rubrics were developed by classroom teachers working in elementary school Spanish partial immersion programs, in consultation with a special education teacher, reading specialist, middle school partial immersion…

This study compared different strategies (questions, comments, reformulations, and repetitions) used by an adult in dialogue with 17 language impaired and 24 control preschool children. Two types of co-production (a tale and a personal account) were analyzed. The stability of the distribution of the various strategies in both situations is seen as…

Instructional materials for use in advanced Arabic second language instruction are presented in two separately-bound parts. The first contains 28 lessons on a wide variety of subjects using a series of authentic texts, all in Arabic. These texts include personal and formal correspondence, short stories, essays, plays, poems, proverbs, and excerpts…

A practicum project to develop instructional materials and related class activities for students of English as a second language (ESL) is described. The context in which the project took place is the ESL instruction of Japanese students with minimal English skills and low motivation in an American community college in Japan. The materials consist…

This resource guide is designed to provide foreign language teachers with suggestions for helping students become better language learners. The four chapters of the guide for teaching speaking skills are as follows: (1) Teaching Learning Strategies (e.g., rationale for teaching, types, useful strategies, guidelines, instructional sequence, and…