Paper presented March 6, 1971, at the TESOL Convention in New Orleans, La. (VM)

This paper examines the effect which certain environmental variables have upon learning to speak English as a second language. (Author)

Research was carried out on Japanese children in the United States to test the hypothesis of early age sensitivity in second language learning. The results did not support this hypothesis. Acquisition proceeded at a fast rate initially, but the amounts of gain diminished with time. (CFM)

Explores the labels "native speaker" (NS) and "nonnative speaker" (NNS) from the perspective of seven nonnative-English-speaking Teaching English as a Second or Other Language (TESOL) professionals. Contends that these terms are related to issues such as the order of learned languages, language competence, language-learning environment, cultural…

Examines theoretical and practical issues in ESL testing including inadequacies of definitions of language proficiency with respect to test taker characteristics; empirical evidence in support of relationship between test taker characteristics and performance on language tests; and guidelines to dealing with test taker characteristics and language…

Study considers teachers' evaluations of students who perform equivalently in written academic work but who have distinct speech varieties including Spanish-influenced English. Despite length of teaching experience and teacher ethnicity, all teachers favored the non-Spanish-influenced speakers. (SL)

Offers a critical review of arguments for and against T-unit analysis in second language research. Maintains that T-unit length is a valid measure of syntactic complexity and a true index of overall development in second language acquisition. (PMJ)

Provides a detailed evaluation of the oral proficiency interview and its underlying assumptions of validity and value. The similarities and differences between interviews and conversations are examined, and some of the major problems of proficiency interviewing are illustrated and discussed. (39 references) (Author/VWL)

Nonnative and native speakers of a language vary in their knowledge and control of the elements of communicative competence. This article introduces an interpretation of Coseriu's neo-Saussurean model that takes into account universal, language-specific, and culture-specific factors and illuminates the teacher's task. (45 references) (Author/LB)

Reports the preferences and attitudes held by English- speaking primary school children in Hawaii toward Hawaiian Creole English (HCE) and Standard English (SE). Findings indicated that, while those from a lower socioeconomic strata initially favored HCE, SE was preferred by all by the end of grade 2. (PMJ)

Ten objective measures of writing proficiency were used to evaluate advanced ESL students' compositions. Only those objective measures taking the absence of errors into account discriminated among holistic evaluations of the compositions by experienced ESL teachers. (PMJ)

Provides reactions to an article, "The Relative Contribution of L2 Language Proficiency and L1 Reading Ability to L2 Reading Performance: A Test of the Threshold Hypothesis in an EFL Context" published in an earlier issue of this journal (v31 n4). The authors of the article respond to these reactions. (Author/VWL)

Reports on an evaluation of the Bangalore/Madras Communicational Teaching Project (CTP), a content-based approach to language learning. Analysis of 21 lesson transcripts revealed a greater incidence of error treatment of content than linguistic error, consonant with the CTP focus on meaning rather than form. (26 references) (Author/CB)

This paper describes the development of a new language laboratory program for advanced students at the English Language Center on the Michigan State University campus, which is designed to bridge the gap between manipulative classroom drills and the demands of the lecture halls. (Author)

Focuses on the increasing use of the so-called stative verbs found in the progressive aspect from the perspective of the nonnative speaker of English. The use of stative verbs in the progressive is a predictable consequence of the meaning of the present progressive and the particular discourse contexts in which progressive statives are found.…