Generalizations regarding languages should be presented to students to aid them in mastering the surface forms they encounter. Hoffmen's analysis of modals postulates a root meaning and an epistemic meaning for modals and predicts that the root interpretation is generally excluded by the progressive and perfect tenses. This system may form the…

This condensation of an original report of the same title describes an analysis and comparison of writing performances of students in two studies: grade 8 students in the 1977 Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) Intermediate Evaluation Project and grade 12 and 13 students in the Interface Study, 1976. The chapters give the purposes…

A method of teaching writing to adult students of English as a second language is presented. The method emphasizes the first-person point of view. For an individual in a new culture with limited vocabulary and uncertain knowledge of structure, beginning with the self and observed events can be reassuring. With this method, described as being a…

The basic-operations hypothesis predicts that for any transformation which is composed of more than one basic operation, there exists a class of errors in children's speech correctly analyzed as failure to apply one (or more) of the operations specified in the adult formulation of the rule. (Author/CTM)

Reviews the research on first and second language acquisition, enumerates some basic features of human language learning, and discusses implications for the foreign language classroom. (RM)

A description of an analysis of 10,000 errors made by Finns and Swedes who were learning Finnish or Swedish as a foreign language. A new classification of errors is established and a precise definition of language mixing is given. Five types of errors are described. (AMH)

Spanish-speaking learners of Portuguese often transfer features of Spanish language to Portuguese. Learner errors, including those caused by Spanish interference, are analyzed by contrasting Portuguese and Spanish grammar. (SW)

Adult skilled and unskilled readers were tested using the cloze procedure, comparing syntactic and lexical errors with materials at varying levels of difficulty. Findings suggest that reading materials for adult basic education students should control not only vocabulary and subject matter, but also the syntactic complexity of the written…

A study of errors in papers written by upper-level (Grades 11-13) students of English, notably in the use of participles, inversion, modal auxiliary verbs, pointed to deficiencies in upper-level teaching texts, insufficient exposure, and goals that are too high. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

A discussion of error analysis understood as the differences between the way people learning a language speak and the way adult native speakers use the language. The inevitable errors can be turned to pedagogical advantage if the teacher provides appropriate feedback to help the learner modify his grammar. (AMH)

A detailed analysis of errors in French composition of French-speaking secondary school students in Ontario. A general conclusion is that these students do not possess a mastery of formal written French. It is hoped that the analysis will help teachers of minority Francophones elsewhere. (Text is in French.) (AMH)

Evaluation of the Russian oral and written proficiency of third-year university students (N=9) suggested a clear relationship between the students' initial oral proficiency ratings and the grammatical accuracy of their written compositions; the lower a student's oral proficiency rating, the greater the average number of written mistakes, and vice…

A study of the error patterns and corrections in the casual peer conversation of anglophones educated in a French immersion program shows the same peer correction patterns used by native speakers, undermining the assumed importance of peer talk in second language classes. (MSE)

English-speaking and Dutch-speaking children were asked to pick the big, tall, or long members of pairs of bricks. Comprehension improved with age but older children in both groups were prone to choose the taller (but smaller) of two objects when asked to point to the bigger one. (SED)

Demonstrates frequent occurrence of self-initiated repairs in speech of kindergarten and second grade children. Speech during "Show and Tell" sessions was scored for spontaneous occurrence of repetitions; corrections of word choice reference and syntax; postponements; and abandonments. Findings indicate most frequent communicative…