A practicum was designed to improve the oral/aural vocabulary which would eventually improve the reading vocabulary of second language learners. The practicum, implemented in a second grade by a media specialist who counted on the cooperation of the classroom teacher, consisted of a read-aloud program in which the students read daily from a…

This is an in-process report on over 100 English-as-a-Foreign-Language argumentative compositions written by Spanish university students in first and fourth year philology. The project aim was to compare writing development over 4 years in a cross-sectional design. As data were collected, factors other than developmental stages began to appear,…

Student apprehension about discussing intellectually "risky" ideas in the foreign language literature class can be addressed through construction of a classroom environment in which students gain confidence. The governing principle is the sequencing of risk. Students perceive risks to be in: (1) making a linguistic error; (2) making an error of…

Adults learning English as a Second Language (ESL) come from different cultures and countries, vary in their education backgrounds, and have diverse reasons for learning English. While reports of overcrowded classrooms and long waiting lists for classes might indicate that intensive outreach and retention efforts are not necessary, many successful…

This study investigated the preferences of students of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) for the form in which a writing prompt is given. Subjects were 142 college students with intermediate to advanced English language skills. Each student was offered 10 potential essay topics, each containing a prompt in the form of either a…

This guide offers advice on the assessment of the language development abilities of bilingual preschool children. A brief review of general bilingual child language development, including mixing and loss or semilingualism, is followed by a review of current assessment practices. A language assessment procedure developed for the State of California…

This paper presents an approach to analyzing the process of second language acquisition, entitled Interlanguage Analysis (IA). IA regards the transitional linguistic system from the learner's first language (L1) to the target language (L2 to TL) as interlanguage (IL). IA seeks to obtain pedagogical implications by clarifying: (1) the types of…

This research investigated the effects of homework completion on test scores for 401 undergraduate students, 94 percent African American, at an urban university in 2 levels of introductory Spanish, all with the same instructor. Five to six teacher-generated exams were administered during the course; the lowest test score for each student was…

The evolution of the concept of communicative competence (CC) in language learning and teaching is traced since 1966, when D. H. Hymes first discussed it publicly. His concept of CC had its theoretical origins in the convergence of transformational generative grammar and the ethnography of communication, and was first discussed at a conference on…

A study investigated the beliefs about language learning held by eight university students enrolled in a course in Ancient Egyptian (AE), drawing on results of a larger study of eight languages. The study identifies priorities in students' general beliefs, describes effects such beliefs may have on their learning "dead" languages, and…

This report offers a conceptual model for use with language minority children who are entering a new school when they must acquire the language of the majority student population. The model has four development components or processes: sociocultural, linguistic, academic, and cognitive. These four components are described in detail. Research is…

This paper describes a project in Scotland that investigated what factors were perceived by adult, university students as helpful or detrimental to their language learning. Questionnaires were completed by a sample of 120 modern language students of French, German, Italian, and Spanish language speakers. In-depth interviews, focusing on homework,…

This dictionary is designed for use by Peace Corps workers in Mongolia, and reflects daily communication needs in that context. An introductory notation gives the alphabetical order of the Cyrillic alphabet, and subsequent sections list words and stems in Mongol, noting the part of speech, and giving simple (one to several words) English…

This videotape showcases how seven young Canadians, all of varied backgrounds and experiences, learned French as a second language and how they use and maintain those language skills in their work, daily life, and further education. All of the subjects learned French in immersion, core French, and two-way bilingual education programs in Canada.…

A study investigated how skills involved in phonological processing (phonological awareness, verbal working memory, and lexical access) are related to reading achievement when a child learns to read in a language not spoken at home. Subjects were 151 English-speaking children in a French immersion program, initially in grades 1, 3, and 5 in 1995.…