A study investigated how American learners acquire the pragmatics of Kiswahili greetings in a foreign language context. Subjects were 16 beginning, 12 intermediate, and 4 advanced students. After an initial month-long observation period, the following hypotheses were formed: (1) learners do not readily initiate greetings; and (2) most learners may…

A classroom technique called "ubertragung," used for exercise and evaluation of oral communication, is explained as it is applied in a course in business German for native speakers of Norwegian. Learners read a text in Norwegian containing information relevant to the study of German for international trade. Later, students use the…

This transcript of and guide to a two-cassette course designed to assist Chinese immigrants in erasure of their foreign accents can be used for either individual or group study. Narrative and taped demonstrations of American English that pinpoint typical phonological barriers and pronunciation difficulties are outlined. The author's own system of…

This transcript of and guide to a two-cassette course designed to assist Irish immigrants in erasure of their foreign accents can be used for either individual or group study. Narrative and taped demonstrations of American English that pinpoint typical phonological barriers and pronunciation difficulties are outlined. The author's own system of…

This transcript of and guide to a two-cassette course designed to assist Japanese immigrants in erasure of their foreign accents can be used for either individual or group study. Narrative and taped demonstrations of American English that pinpoint typical phonological barriers and pronunciation difficulties are outlined. The author's own system of…

This transcript of and guide to a two-cassette course designed to assist Korean immigrants in erasure of their foreign accents can be used for either individual or group study. Narrative and taped demonstrations of American English that pinpoint typical phonological barriers and pronunciation difficulties are outlined. The author's own system of…

In its first year, the Hawaiian Language Immersion Program combined kindergarten and first-grade students in two classes. About half of the students had no speaking knowledge of Hawaiian; the remainder had attended Hawaiian-language preschools and/or spoke Hawaiian at home. Both teachers, fluent speakers of Hawaiian, were new to teaching. The…

This phrasebook is designed to introduce newly-arrived Iranian residents to the daily activities of American life. The phrases and supplementary vocabulary in the book's 19 units cover a wide range of situations. Topics include coping with the language barrier, useful forms of etiquette, giving information about oneself, recognizing signs,…

The graphemic and functional distribution of Chinese punctuation markers are outlined, and the implications of Chinese punctuation practices for second language instruction are discussed. Three kinds of Chinese punctuation markers are described: those graphically unique to Chinese, those written and used in the same manner in both Chinese and…

A study of vowel substitution in Finnish learners of English as a second language looked at the quantitative characteristics of qualitatively similar vowels under different tempo conditions. Specifically, it compared the effects of rate of speech and vowel duration on the eleven stressed monophthongal English vowels and their Finnish counterparts.…

Eleven texts in Diababawon are presented. Diababawon is a Manobo language of the Indonesian branch of the Malayo-Polynesian family and spoken primarily in the province of Davao del Norte, Mindanao, Philippines. An introductory section describes some aspects of the language's phonology. The texts, which include stories and descriptions of common…

For practical reasons, teachers of English as a second language abroad may choose not to learn the local language. However, the advantages of learning even a little of the language far outweigh any inconvenience caused by extra study time. First, teachers abroad lead more comfortable lives when not depending on others for basic needs such as…

An annotated bibliography contains about 70 citations of instructional materials and materials concerning curriculum development for elementary school foreign language programs. Citations are included for Arabic, classical languages, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, and Spanish. Items on exploratory language courses and general works on…

Presentations by students at a colloquium on student research on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the University of Laval's Faculty of Letters, March 18-19, 1988, include: "Une enquete sur la qualite du francais ecrit au Quebec"; "Amenagement linguistique et neologie"; "Analyse syntaxique des 'arrets et retours' en…

A study examined young children's use of the Mandarin "jiu" in its adverbial form in conditional sentences. The language corpus included: (1) spontaneous speech samples of 66 children aged 4, 5, 6, and 7 years in 20 Taiwan locations and (2) story repetitions by 461 4-, 5-, and 6-year-olds in 22 locations. The data indicate that children…