Discusses difficulties of Persian speakers, including literacy problems in learning English because of differences in script, and offers suggestions for solving some of the problems in handwriting, spelling, form-filling, punctuation, and reading. (LB)

People recall taboo words better than neutral words in many experimental contexts. The present rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) experiments demonstrated this taboo-superiority effect for immediate recall of mixed lists containing taboo and neutral words matched for familiarity, length, and category coherence. Under binding theory (MacKay et…

Rhyming tests have historically been used in the education system to assess reading readiness. English language learners (ELLs) have consistently scored poorly on these assessment tools. The current article examines a possible reason for this poor performance by ELLs. Specifically, the authors examined the relationship between semantic…

The concept of language transfer as discussed in Dulay, Burt, and Krashen's book, "Language Two," is critically examined. It is suggested that the work's major thesis, that language transfer, or interference, is relatively low for second language acquisition, is unproven. A survey of the research reports cited to support this claim showed that the…

A language proficiency survey showed the inability of French students to be creative in a second language learned in high school. The article reviews current foreign language teaching methods in the French national school system and suggests that narration might be an effective exercise and that language instruction should begin at the elementary…

Jamaican Creole-speaking college students find it difficult to switch to standard English for school-related tasks. At the composition level, many Jamaican students still experience problems with higher order concerns such as a organization, unity, and coherence. With regard to lower order concerns, three types of writing miscues are prevalent:…

This study examines the possible relationship between elementary and secondary students' use of a nonstandard form of English and the high school dropout rate in the Southern Appalachian region. The investigation began in two counties with interviews of teachers who appeared not to see that their students' speech variety differed from their own.…

Three questions in the application of native-language sociolinguistic theories to second language contexts are addressed: (1) Is transfer always a psycholinguistic process of interlingual overgeneralization? (2) Does attention to speech underlie all style shifting? (3) Is H. Giles' Speech Accommodation Theory adequate to explain all purposeful…

The strategy of "transfer" of native language (NL) items into target language (TL) expressions is considered here to be an active learner strategy dependent on the learner's notion of "distance" between the NL and the TL. Some NL items will be more liable to transfer than others to the extent that they are believed to be less…

The linguistic interactions in the speech of bilingual children is systematically examined to determine their ability to differentiate between their two language systems. The speech samples of eighteen bilingual (Spanish-English) children aged two to six were examined for instances of deviation from the norms of the language of utterance due to…

The pedagogical usefulness of contrastive analysis (CA) is examined and suggestions are offered on ways to use it in foreign language instruction, with particular reference to instruction in English as a Second Language in India. Some of the literature that maintains that CA is almost useless to language teachers is reviewed and answered. The…

Adult native speakers of Hebrew, English-speaking learners of Hebrew, and an additional group of native English speakers were administered a discourse-completion test. Results indicate that to some extent speech-act realization in interlanguage benefits from the activation of a non language-specific pragmatic competence. Conformity to the…

Four papers report on phonetic differences between Finnish and English, with pedagogical implications for teaching English as a second language. "The English /ptk/-/bdg/ Distinction: Data and Discussion" by Kari Suomi is a survey of recent work on the phonetic parameters of the fortis/lenis distinction. The distinction…

In this paper, the author raises the question of exactly which information is of fundamental importance in the construction of phonological tasks in a course in a foreign language. He attempts to indicate an answer with respect to a particular problem encountered by native speakers of Japanese and Russian in learning English: substitution of…