Asserts that common techniques for the teaching of question formation disregard the speaker's purpose and the situation. Moreover, they are frequently based on transforming written sentences, which does not facilitate oral communication. Suggests criteria for judging question-teaching techniques and provides samples of "good"…

The New Canadian Citizenship Act (1974) differs in several ways from the first. For example, it no longer exempts older long-time residents and spouses from the requirement of having adequate knowledge of one of Canada's official languages. Enrollment in ESL (English as a Second Language) classes will undoubtedly increase. (CFM)

Discusses the relevance for the valid testing of reading of the difference between a 'unitary skill' approach to reading and a multiskills approach. The article produces evidence suggesting that a distinction may be drawn between language-based skills and 'global' reading skills. (55 references) (Author/CK)

Discusses a study of concord phenomena in spoken Brazilian Portuguese. Findings indicate the presence of disfluencies, including apparent corrections, in about 15% of the relevant tokens in the corpus of recorded speech data. It is concluded that speech is not overly laden with errors, and there is nothing in the data to mislead the language…

Assesses the effect of a program of communicative language teaching on foreign-language (FL) acquisition in the United States. The article describes the frustration of FL teachers and students at students' difficulty in reaching senior-level status and suggests that colleges require FL majors to spend a year in an immersion program in countries…

Examines infants' sensitivity to word units in fluent speech by inserting one-second pauses either at boundaries between successive words or between syllables within words. Results indicate that, by 11 months, infants are sensitive to word boundaries, and that this sensitivity depends on more than prosodic information or prior knowledge. (65…

Examines quantitative data concerning hesitation phenomena in relation to the subjective perceptions of listeners of nonnative English. Findings reveal that subjective judgments of the number of hesitations or pauses in nonnative speech derive from total pausing time, percentage of pause time, and the length of the longest pause in discourse. (30…

A philosophical and historical reflection on the values of learning a second language explores the stages of language acquisition. Language fluency, second language instruction, and the Western cultural traditions associated with learning a second language are discussed. (CB)

Responding to criticism of an article finding fault with research on French immersion instruction, the author of the first article chides researchers for their unwillingness to re-examine their theories in a new context. (24 references) (MSE)

The effectiveness of accuracy-based programs in producing proficient second-language speakers and of proficiency-based programs in producing accurate speakers is debated. It is concluded that ways must be found to combine the advantages of both grammar-based and comprehension-oriented curricula. (Contains 10 references.) (LB)

Research and clinical data regarding concomitant speech and language problems in children who stutter are reviewed, along with theoretical models explaining this interrelationship. A framework is presented for the differential evaluation of children who stutter, involving four areas of assessment: case history, fluency assessment, language skills…

Explores the extent of language transition and the resilience of immigrant languages based on data from south Florida. Results from 2,843 children of immigrants show that interest in and preference for English is very high and that preservation of the parental language decays with length of U.S. residence. Relationships of bilingualism and…

The Monterey Institute's International Studies curriculum is described in terms of its foreign language fluency requirements for business master's degree candidates and the school's use of language in international business negotiation training and other exercises involving foreign affairs. Illustrations reveal the school's success in educating…

A project is reported in which selected bilingual Mexican-American teachers from Texas traveled to Mexico for a four-week study to collect materials appropriate for U.S. classroom use. The effects of the project on language fluency and ethnic self-concept are discussed. (22 references) (LB)

Lectures of two first-semester teaching assistants, one native American English speaker (NS) and one Korean (NNS) whose discourse was perceived as difficult to follow, were examined. It is argued that the NS's hypotatic constructions provide explicit signals of logical and prominence relations that are missing in the NNS's discourse. (51…