The study by Tamburelli, Jones, Gobet, and Pine (2012; henceforth TJGP) is a very welcome addition to the body of work concerning nonword repetition in typical development. TJGP go beyond previous work in considering three syllabic positions--onset, nucleus, and coda--with the aim of investigating how the positional role of phonemes within the…

In a project-based approach to teaching a foreign language at the university level, students are often required to participate in several task-based writing activities. In doing so, language learners not only write incorrect forms, but also correct forms of the same structures, both of which provide useful information on their strengths and…

A discussion of errors made in second-language learning focuses on the control that the speaker himself exerts over mistakes and argues that this would be a useful area for further research. Implications of such analysis for second-language instruction are considered. (MSE)

Urges extended and broadened use of error analysis in school activities because observing how children perform during varied literacy activities can allow clues to their linguistic rules for using oral and written language and the sociolinguistic rules children are discovering in the classroom. (DF)

Examines the nature of interlanguage as it affects second-language learning and teaching, focusing on the language transfer phenomenon, fossilization, how error analysis and error correction can be improved through understanding of interlanguage, native speaker norms, international varieties of English, and the contribution of interlanguage to…

Discusses the theory that the second-language processing of subordinate clauses and of anaphora is affected by the basic word order of a learners native language. This phenomenon, believed to be a prediction of universal grammar, is explored. (54 references) (Author/VWL)

Reviews research on the language learner and immersion-type bilingual education programs. It is noted that formal foreign language teaching may be needed in these programs for primary school children. It is suggested that research is needed and that a combination of functional and formal approaches be used. (Author/AMH)

Emphasizes that error analysis is not the analysis of the learner's competence. Laments the lack of texts which deal with frequently recurring types of errors, such as those discussed in this article, and which could help to forestall the production of these errors. (IFS/WGA)

One English-as-a-Second-language teacher talks about the email messages she receives from her students, often filled with symbols and spelling and punctuation errors. Examines why such high-level, hardworking students write this way. (Author/VWL)

Found dissociations between regular and irregular inflectional processes in the formation of English past tenses, German noun plurals, and German participles. Children's inflectional errors include using regular patterns for irregular forms. Some linguistic processes, such as forming compound words, are sensitive to the distinction between regular…

Discusses the theoretical foundations of both basic approaches to contrastive analysis, the predictive, "a priori" version, and the explanatory, "a posteriori" version. Analyzes problems in both approaches, and states that explanatory investigations must be divorced from "classical" contrastive analysis and used with a more realistic methodology…

Discusses the significance of causation/reasoning patterns in Korean. Presents crucial examples of acquisition errors of the patterns collected from students learning Korean as a foreign language and proposes an alternative explanation and analysis of these patterns.(Author/VWL)

Weak English-as-a-foreign-language students adopt several mistaken strategies to understand text or to perform text-based tasks. This article describes mistaken strategies, provides examples of each, explains the cause or causes of such mistaken approaches, and suggests possible solutions. (Author/VWL)

Introduces a computer-assisted language-learning system called L2tutor that is designed to provide an immersion experience to travelers before they leave on a trip to a country where a different language is spoken. The learner takes part in a fully mixed-initiative dialog with the system to gain fluency and hone vocabulary and grammatical skills.…

Attitudes toward and approaches to error in language learning depend on one's point of view: strictly linguistic, pedagogical, or that of the learner. This last approach is that "one learns by making mistakes," and from that perspective, there is no absolute definition of error, but only an operative one. (MSE)