Discusses both the pedagogical arguments and the psycholinguistic rationale for small-group work in the second language classroom. Claims that the negotiation work possible in group actiity makes it an attractive alternative to the teacher-led discussion. Reviews research findings on interlanguage which generally support the claims made for group…

A variety of games for beginning second language learners are described. The games are designed to develop the student's confidence in communicating in the target language and to help establish his interlanguage. They include: a bilingual guessing game, to be played by a learner and a native speaker; a game to match words, pictures, and…

The lexical approach to teaching Russian grammar is explained, an instructional sequence is outlined, and a classroom study testing the effectiveness of the approach is reported. The lexical approach draws on research on cognitive psychology, second language acquisition theory, and research on learner language. Its bases in research and its…

This information sheet will assist teachers and coordinators in determining the suitability of the Certificates in English Language Literacies (CELL) curriculum for use by examining the potential target group of learners. This information also provides an overview of some of CELL's organizing features and its framework. Topics covered include:…

When intermediate and advanced students of English as a second language (ESL) begin an English composition course, they face the task of creating logical extended discourses in English. Often, while the sentences they create are free from obvious grammatical errors, they are stylistically unacceptable, vague in meaning, misrepresentative of the…

It is proposed that a major obstacle for intermediate-level learners of English as a Second Language is the transition from thinking in the native language to thinking in English, that this transition must be made before proceeding from the intermediate level, and that it should begin as early as possible in language training. Early in-class…

The manual designed as a guide for trainers in a seminar for teachers concerning some of the central issues in contemporary foreign language teaching and learning presents notes on each of the five seminar sessions, including overall goals and goals for the prescribed session activity, time and procedural notes, and reading lists. (MSE)

Essays on second language teaching focuses on how the kinds of tasks performed by the learner relate to language output. "Choosing and Using Communication Tasks for Second Language Instruction" (Teresa Pica, Ruth Kanagy, Joseph Falodun) contains a taxonomy of communication task types, based on the concepts of goal and activity,…

This paper describes and compares six models for teaching second languages developed and adopted since 1840 (grammar-translation, direct, structural, situational, audiolingual, and communicative methods), and proposes a seventh, the cognitive-linguistic method, incorporating Noam Chomsky's theory of learning. The model takes both extralinguistic…

The manual designed to accompany a seminar for teachers concerning some of the central issues in contemporary foreign language teaching and focusing on how adults go about acquiring language includes materials for five sessions, in three sections. The first section covers language learning and acquisition in general, and contains a survey of the…

Causes of language fossilization and ways to overcome it are considered. Fossilization is the relatively permanent incorporation of incorrect linguistic forms into a person's second language competence. The discussion is focused on fossilization of incorrect syntactical rules, based on experiences with learners of English as a second language at…

The text and accompanying workbook are designed to help second language teachers explore theories of language teaching and learning, deriving a set of hypothesized principles for classroom teaching based on the concept of proficiency and suggesting classroom techniques using them. The first two chapters outline and expand on both theoretical and…