This article reports on an empirical study undertaken at the University of the North, South Africa, to test personal classroom observation and anecdotal evidence about the persistent gap between writing and spoken proficiencies among learners of English as a second language. A comparative and contrastive analysis of speech samples in the study…

This study was an investigation of reading and spelling errors of dyslexic Arabic readers ("n"=20) compared with two groups of normal readers: a young readers group, matched with the dyslexics by reading level ("n"=20) and an age-matched group ("n"=20). They were tested on reading and spelling of texts, isolated…

The Plaut, McClelland, Seidenberg and Patterson (1996) connectionist model of reading was evaluated at two points early in its training against reading data collected from British children on two occasions during their first year of literacy instruction. First, the network's non-word reading was poor relative to word reading when compared with the…

This study examined the on-line processing of French sentences in a grammaticality judgment experiment. Three age groups of French children (mean age: 6;8, 8;6 and 10;10 years) and a group of adults were asked to detect grammatical violations as quickly as possible. Three factors were studied: the violation type: agreement violations (number and…

To investigate decision level processes involved in bilingual word recognition tasks, Dutch-English participants had to name Dutch-English homographs in English. In a stimulus list containing items from both languages, interlingual homographs yielded longer naming latencies, more Dutch responses, and more other errors in both response languages if…

The report describes improved algorithms within a computer program for identifying spelling and word order errors in student responses. A "markup analysis" compares a student's response string to an author-specified model string and generates a graphical error markup that indicates spelling, capitalization, and accent errors, extra or…

The purpose of this study was to: (1) describe differences in performance by non-native learners of English, when writing in different genres; (2) determine communicative value of grammatical errors as judged by a panel of native speakers; and (3) demonstrate inconsistencies in native speaker judgment of error gravity. Subjects were 20…

In a study with seventh- and eighth-graders, Spanish-English bilinguals (n=41) and English monolinguals (n=48) used brief English contexts to choose among possible meanings for unfamiliar words. Two types of errors were compared: transfer errors, which were answers consistent with Spanish but not English syntax, and non-transfer errors, which were…

This paper investigates the error analysis thought processes of foreign language learners regarding their written examples of the language under study, suggesting that consciousness plays a part in instructed second language acquisition. The study assumed that individual learners could offer insights into interim states of their developing grammar…

This paper presents a new computer program called Zigzag, suited for investigating readers' mental activity during text processing. The program permits data collection of two different kinds, namely reading time and reading errors for each of the words read. The second dependent measure, reading errors, provides a better control of the readers'…

Pronunciation is an important subskill in second language learning, therefore worth evaluating. Its quality is commonly assessed in a global, impressionistic way by having learners read aloud. While this allows comparison of examinees' skills, ability to read aloud is a possible confounding variable. An alternative method is to have learners read…

This annotated bibliography includes about 170 citations of dissertations, articles, papers, and other studies concerning the development of writing skills in non-native English-speakers. The works cited are based on the collection and analysis of data, and do not include articles describing or prescribing pedagogical approaches or curricula.…

Instructor attitudes toward students with non-native accents were examined in a study of 55 student teachers attending a small, private liberal arts college in the San Francisco (California) area. A review of the literature included information on error analysis, communication, general attitudes, instructor attitudes, and classroom behavior and…

Research on the language development of children in immersion programs has uncovered a certain amount of data. Immersion students have less well developed productive skills than their francophone peers and passive receptive skills which approach those of francophones. Error analysis studies have found that immersion students reach a plateau in…

A study examined the effect of five types of sentence faults on the method of information processing, recall ability, confidence rating, and comprehensibility rating of college freshman English students. The control text consisted of five passages and the accompanying comprehension questions exactly as they appear on the multiple choice Georgia…