This article explores French L1 speakers' attitudes toward French L2 speakers' negation use. Negation in prescriptive grammars calls for a pre-verbal ne and a post-verbal element like "pas." Although orally "ne" deletion is frequent, it is rarely or never taught. One common, albeit meagerly supported, explanation is that L1…

One of the most complex aspects of verbal interaction to master in a second language is the use of pronouns of address. In French for nursing students, pedagogical prescriptions favour the use of "vous" for interactions with patients; however, corpus linguistic studies have shown that "tu" is increasingly used in the French…

Vygotsky proposed the concept of the zone of proximal development (ZPD) but did not elaborate the concept of "peer," leaving open the question of how capable a peer should be and how practice or outcome might differ according to a peer's level of capability. These issues were investigated in a sociocultural study of first-year Vietnamese…

This article examines the evidence and arguments for and against the position that young children are better equipped to profit from foreign language studies than adults, with special reference to FLES programs. Adult and child learning patterns are compared, along with the formal and informal contexts of language acquisition. (CLK)

Three issues of concern in language acquisition are discussed: (1) apparent attrition of the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) by puberty; (2) observable differences among second-language learners with respect to LAD efficiency; and (3) whether explicit rules of grammar can become part of linguistic competence. (42 references) (Author/MSE)

A study compared the English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) performance of secondary school students who had participated in intensive ESL instruction in grade five or six and those following regular ESL instruction in elementary school. Students with early instruction maintained the English language superiority acquired during the program. (eight…

A study investigated the communication strategies used by successful and less successful early French immersion learners by analysis of the use of 10 specific communication strategies. Results show effective communicators used virtually all strategies, with more achievement than reduction strategies; less effective communicators used fewer…

A study examined the effect of age of arrival, length of years in an English-speaking country, and linguistic context on the pronunciation of 29 adult learners of English as a second language. Unexpectedly, pronunciation ratings were nearly identical for both retelling a personal trauma and for reading aloud. (MSE)

A study of age and time differences in motivation for learning French and in attitudes toward French instruction found attitude variation decreasing with time, and found rural and suburban students' attitudes linked most to the learning situation while urban students' motivation was rooted in desire to communicate in French. (MSE)

Results of a large-scale evaluation of early and middle immersion programs in the Toronto (Ontario) area, involving 4 districts and 26 grade 8 classes, suggest that middle immersion yields less consistent performance levels than early immersion. Overall, findings favor early immersion. (11 references) (Author/MSE)

Evaluation of French second-language learning among college and adult students with videodisk "Vi-Conte" found: beginners adopted less linear paths than adults or more advanced students; lexical acquisition varied by proficiency level; frequency, salience, mode of presentation of lexical items in a multimedia environment affected acquisition;…