A British ethnolinguistic study described the language behavior of 12 preschool children during their first experience in a formal educational setting where they constituted a linguistic minority. All were third-generation, British-born children of Moslem parents of ethnic Pakistani background; their home language was a vernacular Panjabi. Data…

A study investigated beliefs about language learning held by American adult students of Arabic studying in two programs, one in Morocco and one in Yemen, and compared them with beliefs held by the teachers. Subjects were 44 students and 10 teachers from the Morocco program and 27 students and 7 teachers from the Yemen program. Subjects were…

This study tested the utility of an approach to analyzing second language learners' listening skills in the context of a classroom discussion ("two-way listening skills"). The approach used was the Communicative Outcome system, which shifts the focus in discourse analysis from counting of tokens of negotiation to evaluation of what participants…

Problems involving empirical research into written business communication in Finnish and English are examined. Some of the problems are shown to be obvious reasons for the scarcity of research in this field. Three issues are discussed: (1) problems in establishing sub-categories and classification of current written business communication; (2) the…

Little data are available concerning the native languages of Scandinavian residents, other than the official languages, despite the linguistic diversity of the region. Foreign language teaching starts early in schooling, but there has been little study of actual language needs. Three basic program designs are available for teaching foreign…

The development of the Polish Proficiency Test, a standardized, nationally-normed test of listening and reading comprehension for English-speaking learners of Polish, is reported. An introductory chapter provides background information about the test's development, including discussion of the relationship between the test and Polish language…

A native language renewal program at the Macy, Nebraska Public School is described that is designed to preserve Omaha, a native American Indian language that is only a generation away from extinction. At the time of this research, only about 100 fluent Omaha speakers lived on the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska. The language and culture program,…

A case study investigated the writing processes of an adult native speaker of Portuguese in a number of writing tasks in his native language (L1) and in English, his second language (L2). Writing samples over a 14-month period were examined. Most data were collected in thinking aloud protocols for 10 written tasks of varying degrees of familiarity…

This issue of a journal designed to present works in progress by students and professors of linguistics contains the following papers: "In Praise of My Language" (Joshua A. Fishman); "How Does Social Status Affect the Sequencing Rules of Other-Introductions?" (Fred J. Chen); "The Role of Ethno-Lingual Relativity in Second…

This college-level textbook, entirely in Arabic, is designed to help students develop specific reading skills, namely, skimming and scanning. Users should have had at least 30 quarter hours of Arabic instruction previously. The reading selections and tasks are intended to promote reading fluency by also increasing reading speed. Learner tasks also…

The speaking ability of 40 Finnish college students of English as a Second Language was assessed in tests of interactional and transactional language function. In the interactional test, the learner introduced a topic of his choice and attempted to converse with two native speakers of English. In the transactional test, the learner watched a video…

A study of the relationship between language learners' attitudes and their development of language proficiency was based on a survey of 50 Yugoslavian university students of English as a Second Language (ESL). The subjects were taking English to fulfill a second language requirement. They were first administered two written attitudinal surveys in…

A contrastive study of Japanese and American English sought to explore how speakers agree and disagree in the two languages. Japanese-speaking college students and American English-speaking teachers of English as a foreign language were informally questioned about food preferences, with their comments surreptitiously recorded for analysis. Results…

This workbook tapescript is a component of "Beginning Pashto," a set of materials (including a textbook, student workbook, teacher's manual and glossary) that teaches the Pashto language. The tapescript consists of the prompts for the exercises marked with a T in the workbook. The workbook tapescript has been designed for the would-be Pashto…

Six essays on native language instruction in Africa are presented. "Why Teach in an African Language?" examines the rationale and advantages of teaching in African mother tongues, and "Why Teach an African Language as a School Subject" discusses the need for such instruction. "Do African Languages Have Sufficient Potential…