An output-centered approach to foreign language instruction is presented that emphasizes a focus on form. Argues that "pushed output" is a crucial element of the language classroom environment that is focused on oral skills development among learners. (Author/VWL)

Addresses the question of whether there are different characteristics and language performance conditions (involving assumed different levels of cognitive demand) associated with different levels of fluency, complexity, or accuracy in test candidate responses. Participants were pre-university students taking English courses. (Author/VWL)

Investigates the role of visual communication in a spoken research genre: the scientific research paper. Analyzes 2,048 visuals projected during 90 papers given at five international conferences in three fields (Geology, medicine, physics), in order to bring out the recurrent features of the visual dimension. (Author/VWL)

Children with specific language impairment (SLI) have associated difficulties in reading decoding and reading comprehension. To date, few research studies have examined the children's written language. The aim of the present study was to (a) evaluate the nature and extent of the children's difficulties with writing and (b) investigate the…

Developmental difficulties with reading comprehension are not uncommon. This article examines the nature of reading comprehension deficits in three groups of children: children identified as having relatively specific impairments in reading comprehension, children with autism spectrum disorder, and children with specific language impairment. The…

A study of the relationships between students' questioning and learning styles is being conducted on data collected in two university semesters with a sample of 300 students. This report discusses the results of case studies looking in depth at four of the students. These were involved in further data collection through written and oral questions,…

This study compares what we term information density in spoken versus written discourse by distinguishing between 2 broad classes of material in narrative texts: narrative information as conveyed through three types of propositional content--events, descriptions, and interpretations (Berman, 1997)--and ancillary information as conveyed by…

In this article, the authors discuss the importance of oral language formation as it relates to literacy and the development of children's skills, knowledge, and understanding with respect to reading and writing. Describing stories as the link between everyday language and literate forms of language, they explain why children need the experience…

Although researchers studying human speech recognition (HSR) and automatic speech recognition (ASR) share a common interest in how information processing systems (human or machine) recognize spoken language, there is little communication between the two disciplines. We suggest that this lack of communication follows largely from the fact that…

The relationship between acculturation and depression in a sample of 1,510 Puerto Ricans residing in the U.S. was examined. Acculturation was measured by assessing subjects' spoken, preferred, read, and written language. Depression was evaluated by the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. The scale yielded a three-factor structure…

Teenage pregnancy is an issue receiving a growing amount of attention in the United States, with approximately one million children born to teenage mothers annually. Teen mothers tend to function less effectively in numerous realms than their peers who delay child-rearing, and the children of teen mothers are at greater risk of school failure. In…

When participants are presented simultaneously with spoken language and a visual display depicting objects to which that language refers, participants spontaneously fixate the visual referents of the words being heard [Cooper, R. M. (1974). The control of eye fixation by the meaning of spoken language: A new methodology for the real-time…

When the seminal article on the organization of turn-taking by Sacks, Schegloff, and Jefferson (1974) was published 30 years ago, I started learning English as a foreign language. In addition to being a learner of the English language for many years, I was also trained in the traditions of Conversation Analysis (CA) and linguistic anthropology…

The two experiments reported here investigated the ability of sighted children and children with visual impairment to comprehend text and, in particular, to draw inferences both while reading and while listening. Children were assigned into "comprehension skill" groups, depending on the degree to which their reading comprehension skill was in line…

Perceptual discrimination between speech sounds belonging to different phoneme categories is better than that between sounds falling within the same category. This property, known as ''categorical perception,'' is weaker in children affected by dyslexia. Categorical perception develops from the predispositions of newborns for discriminating all…