Examines the debate initiated by Thomas J. Farrell's 1983 article, "IQ and Standard English." Suggests the importance of social class in assessing the situation of basic writers coming to college from predominately oral cultures, who are generally unprepared to write critically, follow complex lines of argument, or handle new vocabulary…

Describes a workshop used in teacher development programs to help teachers know what to look for when assessing a students ability to speak English. Also examined is how the selection and weighting of those criteria should depend on the circumstances in which the test takes place. (11 references) (JL)

Normally hearing children (aged 4--10) and hearing-impaired children (aged 6--14) were tested on word awareness skills, such as the distinction between words and their referents, and their ability to provide explicit definitions of word. Older children performed significantly better than younger children, and normally hearing children performed…

An approach to increasing intermediate students' listening comprehension of conversational Spanish used video materials taped from real Spanish TV broadcasts. Careful breakdown into comprehensible units, combined with repetition and then student reproduction, improved listening skills in the class more than did conventional methods in control…

In a study of the oral performance of English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) learners, the accuracy and developmental progress of young francophone 10 and 12 year olds was investigated. Results support the hypothesis that form-focused instruction and corrective feedback provided in the context of communicative interaction can contribute to short- and…

Discusses an approach to teaching about the environment in the Spanish classroom. The approach incorporates oral proficiency goals and is based on authentic materials that are accompanied by worksheets that include prereading exercises, small-group discussion activities and structured conversation and composition suggestions. (VWL)

A discussion of errors made in second-language learning focuses on the control that the speaker himself exerts over mistakes and argues that this would be a useful area for further research. Implications of such analysis for second-language instruction are considered. (MSE)

Some guidelines are offered that detail the complexities involved in interviewing for language testing purposes. They cover strategies for structuring interviews (informal conversational, interview guide, standardized open-ended), questions, interviewing skills, and physical setting. (five references) (LB)

Ngee Ann Polytechnic in Singapore developed a three-part procedure to help English language students overcome anxiety about preparing and delivering a two-minute persuasive talk as part of an exam. The approach has the students first talk about themselves and then use computer prompts and videotaped practice speeches. (LB)

Challenges the new, legally binding provision that spoken Standard English should be taught to all school pupils who do not already speak it. The socially sinister implications of the compulsory curriculum, the flawed description of Standard and non-Standard English, and the resulting lack of flexibility, negotiation, and contestation are all…

Exploration of the role of listening comprehension in facilitating second-language learning includes discussion of the auditory perception of language, listening disadvantages for second-language learners, the need to concentrate on lexical knowledge rather than ear training, minimum word knowledge requirements, and lexical ignorance as a major…

Part one of this study discussed the characteristics of errors involving single fricative consonants made by English children learning their first language. Here, the second part discusses the distinctive features of the single fricatives most commonly mispronounced, as well as the characteristics of errors with clustered fricatives. (34…

The media interview is seen as a form of information exchange that is increasingly important and needs to be understood. Similarities and differences in written and oral interview reports are briefly examined, and interview objectives, forms (dialogue or narrative), and language functions are discussed. (MSE)

Suggests a culture-independent analytical framework, based on natural semantic metalanguage developed by the author, to explore and analyze six Japanese culture-specific and culturally revealing concepts and show how the semantic metalanguage helps to make the concepts clear and facilitate better insight into Japanese culture and society. (102…

Results are presented on the grammar of spoken Brazilian Portuguese, with focus on the syntactic boundaries of the main constituents of an utterance. Major differences are found both in the distribution of filling by syntactic adjuncts versus discourse elements and in the susceptibility of different syntactic boundaries to be filled. (Contains 33…