The interactions among cognitive, affective, and linguistic factors have received scant attention in task-based writing research. To address this gap, this study aims to examine the relationships among task complexity, task motivation, task engagement, and syntactic complexity in second language (L2) writing. One hundred L2 learners enrolled in an…

Oral Proficiency Interviews (OPIs) are widely used to measure speaking ability in a second or foreign language. The Michigan English Language Assessment Battery (MELAB) Speaking Test is an OPI used for academic and professional purposes around the world. However, little research on this or other OPIs has quantitatively compared test takers' speech…

The aim of the current study is to investigate motion event cognition in second language learners in a higher education context. Based on recent findings that speakers of grammatical aspect languages like English attend less to the endpoint (goal) of events than do speakers of nonaspect languages like Swedish in a nonverbal categorization task…

Community service learning (CSL) is a type of experiential learning that blends specific course content with real-world applications and ties them together through structured reflection. It is an ideal pedagogy for 21st-century language for specific purposes (LSP) programs. This article frames that argument around sociocultural theory, moves to a…

Although it has existed for many decades in the national curriculum of U.S. higher education, the study of languages for business purposes has lacked a more serviceable and academically communal name--a more rigorous toponymic identity--by which to identify itself as a theory-based field of scholarship. The intention here is to propose for…

Incidental focus on form is one of several ways to direct language learners' attention to formal aspects of language within meaningful communicative contexts. Learners can benefit from focus on form, but the extent to which incidental focus on form, or any other type, is available to learners in advanced foreign language literature classes has not…

Reports on the 552 dissertations written by 1990 doctoral students in foreign language areas, listing language, area of study, author, dissertation supervisors, and school. (CB)

Describes a study done to determine if foreign language students are at a disadvantage when their teachers assume that the students have a working knowledge of English grammar terminology, which they may never have learned. Attempts to document the extent of students' knowledge of traditional English grammar terminology. (SED)

Describes a study that investigates how American learners of German acquire gender in order to answer the following questions: (1) Do learners of German develop strategies for dealing with gender assignment? (2) If yes, what is the nature of these strategies and how do they differ from those employed by native Germans? (SED)

Reports on a study identifying the varying beliefs of beginning university foreign language students about language learning, focusing on one component of an ongoing investigation attempting to characterize individual learner beliefs and belief systems by student type. (CB)

University students of Spanish at three different course levels were used in a study of the effects of topic familiarity on second-language listening comprehension. Findings regarding the supporting role of background knowledge are consistent with many second-language reading and listening studies. (Contains 45 references.) (LB)

Doctoral degrees in foreign languages granted during the academic year 1973-1974 and in the summer of 1974 are listed by major field. Within each field, institutions are listed alphabetically; and within each institution, candidates' names appear in alphabetical order, followed by thesis title and thesis director's name. (Author/RM)

Doctoral degrees in foreign languages granted during the academic year 1972-1973 are listed in supplement to those listed in the Jan-Feb 1974 issue of "Modern Language Journal." Listings are by major field; within each field, institutions are listed alphabetically. Within each institution, candidates' names appear in alphabetical order, followed…

Investigates whether readers who consider context and note the interrelationship of words, actions, and ideas understand more than students who do not use this text-level strategy. The strategy-use section and questionnaire utilized to elicit perceived strategy use are included in the appendices. (LMO)

Considers some of the most common cliches and their implications about foreign language requirements. (EKN)