Argues that the "communicative approach" to second-language teaching ignores possible differences in students' needs, interests, and responses. Describes a survey of students' attitudes at a secondary school in Spain and three experiments on the interaction between the first and the target languages and on the effectiveness of communicative and…

Reports on three investigations concerning the acquisition of a third language in bilingual immigrant students in Germany and Sweden. The results suggest that immigrant students who always use Swedish at home but have passive knowledge of their first language clearly perform better in English than do Swedish monolingual students. (SL)

Discusses the issues entailed in measuring bilingual competency in individuals and measuring the outcomes of bilingual education. Measurement instrument types are reviewed briefly and existing research is cited. The indications on bilingualism are taken from a 1967 seminar in Moncton, New Brunswick; the bilingual education indications, from the…

This paper discusses one Chinese graduate student's experience with English writing. Through a literature review and personal interviews with other Chinese students, the paper explores the differences between Chinese and English writing. It summarizes the literature on differences between Chinese and English writing conventions in ideological and…

Revised and abridged version of You Can't Learn without Goofing (An Analysis of Children's Second Language Errors')'' to appear in Jack Richards (ed.), Error Analysis -- Perspectives in Second Language Acquisition,'' (Longmans). A goof'' is a productive error made during the language learning process. (RS)

Although critical of some of the claims made for contrastive analysis in the past, this article treats contrastive analysis as a useful pursuit which can contribute to language learning. (FB)

The relationship of learning to organization of stimuli is explored. (CK)

The use of second language students' existing understanding of grammatical forms in their native language for second language instruction is examined, and the importance of knowing when to replace grammatical analysis with use of the target language is discussed. A slow process of discovering appropriate teaching techniques is foreseen. (MSE)

Describes a reading experiment with two groups of English speaking children attending French immersion programs. The two groups, from grades 3 and 6 respectively, were tested in both English and French for their ability to recognize spelling patterns and to make positive transfers from one language to the other. (MES)

Results of a 10-item oral language test presented only orally, orally with pictures, and orally with concrete aids replicate earlier research findings showing that bilingual children manipulate language more easily than unilinguals. Unilinguals' errors were due to incomplete development while bilinguals' were caused by that and first-language…

Deals with English stress problems for Iraqis under three main headings: single-stressed words, double-stressed words, and unstressed syllables. While stress in Arabic is predictable, stress in English is not. The Iraqi will transfer native-language stress patterns to English. Errors cause miscommunication and are difficult to pinpoint. (PJM)