Early and intermediate second language (L2) learners often encounter difficulties when engaging in introductory social conversations, typically having had little opportunity to practise such interactions. This article describes a project to design and prototype a computer dialogue system, Let's Chat, which would allow learners to rehearse social…

Participants of stuttering treatment programs provide an opportunity to evaluate persons who stutter as they demonstrate varying levels of fluency. Identifying physiologic correlates of altered fluency levels may lead to insights about mechanisms of speech disfluency. This study examined respiratory, orofacial kinematic and acoustic measures in 35…

Purpose: According to the "reserve perspective" on cognitive aging, individuals are born with or can develop resources that help them resist normal and disease-related cognitive changes that occur in aging. The reserve perspective is becoming more sophisticated, but gaps in knowledge persist. In the present research, we considered three…

This paper presents a proposal for a new approach to the fundamental problem of illiteracy existing among the Indians in the northern prairie provinces of Canada. It also suggests several ways in which the use of native language can be strengthened. The approach to be used in solving the language problem is the Teaching of English as a Second…

A study compared the laryngeal behavior associated with the perceptually fluent speech of 3-to-7-year-old stutterers (N=8) to that of normally fluent peers (N=8). Analysis of electroglottograph readings indicated that normally fluent children exhibited significantly more typical patterns during consonant-vowel and vowel-consonant transitions than…

Although this article points out to an English audience the increased opportunity for British schoolchildren to improve their language skills on the Continent, it includes pointers for all foreign language teachers who can introduce their students to the culture of country under study. (PD)

The study assessed the effect of increasing the difficulty of reading material on the frequency and type of disfluency in the oral reading of 80 normally fluent elementary school children. Results indicated a significant increase in total moments of disfluency and four specific types of disfluency as the difficulty of reading material increased.…

Voicing onset changes between control conditions and three fluency-evoking conditions (choral reading, delayed auditory feedback, and noise) were studied in 10 individuals who stutter and in 12 controls. Results indicate that although fluency-evoking conditions modified some voicing-onset behaviors, these modifications did not relate to…

Examines feasibility of an experimental computerized training for fluent lexical retrieval in the second language in a classroom setting, applying techniques previously restricted to laboratory use. Results on both a lexical decision task and written lexical retrieval task show students in each condition have higher accuracy scores and superior…

Examines the rating scale and the testing procedure of the oral interview for evidence of discourse competence. The paper suggests that a careful examination of the processing capabilities might serve as a valid indicator of their discourse competence. (24 references) (GLR)

Researchers studied the effects of self-modeling as an intervention for stuttering in school-aged students. Students viewed videotapes of themselves speaking fluently over a six-week period. All students evidenced a decrease in stuttering after viewing tapes. The increased fluency generalized to social settings. Results replicate those of an…

Provides a rationale for approaching mathematics as a second language. Gives teaching suggestions: begin in early childhood, stress similarities between math and language, use spoken math before written, use authentic assessment, and focus on real-life math use. (SK)