Discusses the work of Seiichi Makino, a scholar of Japanese, noting his professional accomplishments parallel the growth and successes of the field of Japanese studies. Shows how Makino encouraged Japanese teachers to collaborate with professionals in other languages. (Author/VWL)

Includes a response to an article written previously on what a postmodernist perspective might do for second language acquisition research and a comment by the author of the original article reacting to the response. (Author/VWL)

Responds to Ellis (2002), which suggests the statistical structure of the linguistic environment is a crucial and relatively neglected variable in language learning. This approach makes three assumptions about cognition and language learning that are not universally shared. Describes a distributed, instance-based approach that retains key features…

Responds to a study that examined three hypotheses concerning the existence of a critical period for second language acquisition. Examines the three hypotheses and argues that the data do not provide the necessary support for the interpretation that a critical period has influenced the results. (Author/VWL)

Defends the idea that language is a unique, genetically underwritten "module of the mind" and considers consequences such a stance holds for the psycholinguistic study of nonnative language acquisition. Supports the position that language, as conceived within the tradition of generative grammar, is unlike other types of cognition and its basis is…

Provides background information on German rap artists and bands and discusses how to implement the music in various classroom situations at all levels. Highlights some of the available material on German rap music and provides information on how to locate rap texts, information, and other material via the Internet and other sources. (Author/VWL)

Three ideas are discussed for use in the second language classroom. These include drama warm ups, a lesson based on a playscript, and the explorative-creative approach. (VWL)

Discusses the use of electronic glossaries in learning second language vocabulary. Examines important technological and pedagogical factors that should be considered to fully exploit the potential of an electronic glossary. (Author/VWL)

Discusses perspectives on the teaching of German grammar, with insight from the Genfer-DiGS research project. (Author/VWL)

Praises the work of Claire Kramsch and her ability to sensitize educators to the great intellectual and cultural experiences of linguistic foreignness and her effective advocacy for the intellectual weight of foreign language pedagogy in the academy. (Author/VWL)

Responds to a previous article criticizing the variation models of second-language acquisition (SLA), and argues that the variation models can and do explain (SLA) and that any adequate model of SLA should take interlanguage into account. (Author/VWL)

Explores factors affecting the ease or difficulty with which new words are learned in a second language, focusing on such intralexical factors as pronuncability, length, parts of speech, inflexional complexity, derivational complexity, semantic features, abstractedness, specificity, idomaticity, register restrictions, and multiple meaning. (52…

A discussion on the acquisition of morphology and syntax focuses on the following: (1) the problem of regularity in interlanguage (IL) morphology and syntax, (2) the contribution of universal grammar to second-language acquisition, and (3) variability in IL performance. An annotated bibliography is appended. (38 references) (GLR)

A brief survey of research on second-language (L2) vocabulary focuses on the following: knowledge of the lexicon; lexical simplification; the role of native language to L2 vocabulary development; prototypes; and vocabulary in context. (29 references) (GLR)

Suggestions are presented for how the link between theoretical and applied phonology may be concretely defined for the purposes of research on second language phonological development. (71 references) (Author/VWL)