A study was conducted to test various explanations of the error of unmarked noun plurals made by first generation Italian immigrants. The error appeared to be "fossilized" or not eradicated over a period of time. (SW)

Explores the efficacy of a behavioral remediation program for oral reading on oral reading errors and comprehension of four moderately mentally retarded children. Reveals a clear relationship between remediation and oral reading errors and proves that the remediation program was effective in reducing oral reading errors and increasing…

Examines the use of computers for error detection in natural language texts. Focuses on a computer program designed to teach students to edit their papers for errors using pattern matching in error detection. Describes a "pedagogy for editing" and speculates on ways to improve computer detection of errors in natural language texts. (AEM)

Viewing language learning as another skill acquisition process allows correction to be seen differently. An "error" occurs when knowledge is faulty, a "mistake" when only the performance is faulty. Mistakes can be corrected when (1) the student desires correction; (2) knows what is correct; (3) knows a mistake has occurred; and…

Compares the different criteria used to identify poor spellers and readers from good spellers and readers. Findings reveal that visual memory of orthographic sequences may help to differentiate between poor and good spellers. (CB)

Describes the development in progress of a syntactic parser of German called "Syncheck," which uses the programing language "Prolog." The grammar is written in a formalism called "Definate Clause Grammar." The purpose of "Syncheck" is to provide advice on grammatical correctness to intermediate and advanced…

Presents evidence to show that the development and institutionalization of non-native varieties of English around the world pose a serious problem for all existing theories of second language acquisition. The issues that need to be addressed in future research are clearly defined. (Author/SED)

Describes a computer-assisted research project into the writing errors of English as a second language college students. Sentences with error types and first languages of students were entered into a database and analyzed for the most common errors of all students and the most prevalent patterns within each language group. (Author/SED)

Compares the performance of German school learners of English in a communicative writing task and of their teachers in assessing it with that of native English pupils and teachers carrying out the same task. Raises questions about the appropriate performance model for communicative tasks and the role of usage in teacher assessments. (Author/SED)

Examines methods by which test researchers and practitioners might respond to social and educational demands. Reports on the research which examines human cognition and development. Suggests that understanding how these abilities are acquired can facilitate their acquisition. Proposes a research agenda to redress social problems concerning testing…

Reports on a study in which 12 good and 12 poor fourth-grade readers read selections in their original format and with the words in random order; concludes that the results indicate that word identification errors elicited on tests in isolation do not constitute a solid basis for predicting errors in connected text. (ET)

Some empirical data are presented concerning the use of cloze tests to measure children's proficiency in a bilingual educational program. The subjects were grade five students in their sixth year of a primary French immersion program. (Author/CFM)

Reports on follow-up analyses of Sasaki's (in press) competition experiment study of Japanese sentence comprehension strategies conducted to investigate the double-object active and transitive causative sentence processing strategies by English-speaking learners of Japanese and how immediate error feedback affects them. The article contrasts…

Tested the hypothesis that phonological mediation plays a critical role in the early development of reading and spelling in French. The findings corroborated predictions regarding performance involving pseudowords of different syllablic structures except for the failure to find differences between open and closed syllables. Results confirmed the…

Examines a task that can be applied in a uniform fashion across different languages to compare levels of vocabulary development in foreign-language learning. Results indicate that the lexical decision task can be a useful tool for the assessment and cross-linguistic comparison of lexical development in foreign-language learning. (37 references)…