In early stages of classroom language learning, many adult second language (L2) learners communicate primarily with one another, yet we know little about which speech stream characteristics learners tune into or the extent to which they understand this lingua franca communication. In the current study, 25 native English speakers learning German as…

Assumes that adult second language learners cannot achieve the same degree of proficiency in a second language as children learning a second language. An information-processing approach is presented, and the aspects of utilization, faulty or incomplete declarative knowledge, and limited working memory space are used to account for deficiencies in…

A follow-up study contrasted the performance of adult second language learners on phonological perception tasks with their performance in articulatory production. Native speakers of French (N=12) and second language learners of French at two levels of French proficiency were tested on three perception and four production tasks to identify the…

This study examined the relationship between external language behavior in the form of intensity of verbal interaction between the learner and his language environment and the effects of this interaction on language abilities as measured by language tests. The subjects were adult learners of English as a second language. (CFM)

Reports the results of a study which sought to investigate the validity of the oral interview in testing language proficiency, in particular that of adult students of English as a Second Language. (Author/AM)

Examines: (1) correlations between attitudes of Japanese students toward various variables, and their proficiency in English; and (2) the validity of attitude measures. (Author/AM)

Examines the differential use of formal explicit knowledge and intuitive implicit knowledge in a second language grammaticality judgement tasks. (Author/AM)

Three oral testing methods (imitation, completion, and interview) were compared for reliability and validity with 143 adult Egyptian learners of English. Five components (raw score, fluency, pronunciation, grammar, and combined fluency-pronunciation-grammar) were analyzed for each method. Imitation showed the highest validity, with interview and…

Examines differences in oral narrative discourse of adult second-language learners of English on narrative tasks simulating the ability to describe events in the Here-and-Now versus the There-and-Then. Results indicate that complex tasks elicit less fluent, but more accurate and complex narration than do simpler tasks. (90 references) (Author/CK)