Because idioms are omnipresent in the authentic language students are exposed to, to successfully comprehend and produce natural language, learners of a second or foreign language need to possess a good knowledge of idioms and competence in idiom use. This paper examines the approaches to teaching and learning idioms. A discussion of the…

English titles of medical research articles (RAs) are of great importance, the quality of which can, to a certain degree, affect impact factors of the articles, because many readers will make a decision as to whether to read on after reading titles. However, the special genre has not been extensively studied to date. This paper is designed to…

Describes a method of teaching German adjective endings and adjectival nouns which simplifies the traditional "strong,""weak," and "mixed" endings approach. (EKN)

Retells the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears as a mnemonic device for learning German simple past verb forms. (EKN)

Presents an "expose" of academic jargon that often confuses educators and other readers. The terms are humorously defined to reveal the money and status struggles that protect academics from "unhealthy preoccupation" with teaching and scholarship. (CJH)

Discusses the "nur/erst" translation problem and offers several strategies for determining which one should be used for the English "only." (EKN)

Gives an elementary description of German syntax which is coherent and provides students with finite, countable categories: (1) the predicate, (2) its nominal complements, and (3) modifiers. Analyzes each category and gives examples with teaching suggestions. (EKN)

Discusses the role of hearing and speaking in learning a classical language. Presents several examples of oral-aural techniques for the Latin classroom. (EKN)

Suggests aids to the acquisition of some of the basic features that are sources of difficulty in Russian verbs. The proposals concern form rather than function and are derived from regularity, overall frequency, and actual occurrence in textbooks. (EKN)

The study sought to isolate and identify patterns occurring in language interactions between mothers and their nonhandicapped and Down Syndrome children. Data were collected as part of a 3-year study of language interaction. Twenty nonhandicapped (NH) and 20 Down Syndrome (DS) children and their mothers were evaluated via a demographic inventory,…

Discusses the benefits of short answers and how they differ in German and English. Provides hints on how to teach students to produce reduced answers that are grammatically acceptable in spoken German. (EKN)

Examines the reading and writing processes and their interdependence and urges the language arts instructor to be an audience for children's writing and to help them become aware that what they read is someone else's writing. (HTH)

This analysis of 17,602 frequently used words found that 616 orthographic rimes occurred in rime families as building blocks of almost all the 43,041 word syllables. Of these, 436 were both regular and consistent in pronunciation, and only 86 had less than a 90 percent level of consistency. Results suggest the usefulness of rime units for teaching…

Discusses teaching students to be sensitive to the nuances of word choice, intonation patterns, slang, and grammatical deviations in a second language. Suggests some classroom techniques to develop this awareness. (EKN)