As in teaching other languages, the most difficult of the four basic skills in teaching Turkish as a foreign language is writing; it includes very different strategies from sequencing to analysis and synthesis. In addition, foreign language learners tend to transfer the forms and meanings of their own culture and language to the target language…

While metalinguistic awareness (MLA) has been shown to play a crucial role in second and third language acquisition, a variety of methodological approaches point to the difficulty of operationalising the concept. The present study provides a critical analysis of MLA in relation to its measurement by means of a French-language test of…

Two masked priming experiments investigated the impact of prime lexicality (word vs. nonword) and the pseudo-morphological structure of prime stimuli (pseudosuffixed vs. nonsuffixed) on embedded word priming effects. In the related prime conditions, target words were embedded at the beginning of prime stimuli and were followed either by a…

A body of previous work in second- and foreign language pronunciation instruction (e.g., Lord, 2005; Miller, 2012) has shown that explicit phonetic and pronunciation instruction is beneficial. However, Olson (2014) noted that just a few minutes per week of instruction are devoted to pronunciation in most classrooms. What is the effect of such…

The current study investigated whether shared phonology across languages activates cross-language meaning when reading in context. Eighty-five bilinguals read English sentences while their eye movements were tracked. Critical sentences contained English members of English-French interlingual homophone pairs (e.g., "mow"; French homophone…

We examined language-switching effects in French-English bilinguals using a paradigm where pictures are always named in the same language (either French or English) within a block of trials, and on each trial, the picture is preceded by a printed word from the same language or from the other language. Participants had to either make a language…

This study was conducted to identify and describe the written verb-form errors found in the EAP writing of 39 second year learners pursuing a three-year Diploma Programme from a public university in Malaysia. Data for this study, which were collected from a written 350-word discursive essay, were analyzed to determine the types and frequency of…

In a study on L2 proficiency in writing, conducted among 84 Dutch university students of Italian and 75 students of French, manipulation of task complexity led in the complex task to a significant decrease of errors, while at the same time a trend for a lexically more varied text was observed (Kuiken and Vedder 2005, 2007, in press). Based on this…

The stereotype has it that native French Speakers are annoyed by foreign Speakers' errors in pronunciation. The purpose of this pilot study was to assess beliefs about the importance of accurate pronunciation in French held by three afferent groups: (1) 73 second- and third-semester students of French at a large midwestern research university in…

Lists the 50 most common writing errors made by college students of French. Mistakes in spelling, vocabulary, and grammar are included. (CK)

A study investigated patterns of usage of French connectors (e.g., "alors,""mais,""puisque") among Chinese university students of French as a foreign language. The study arose from concern that the lack of connector usage contributed to a lack of coherence in the students' oral and written language. Subjects were 45…

Based on the premise that teaching basic writing involves first understanding what tends to go wrong when students write, a computer assisted system of error prediction and analysis was designed to improve college students' writing skills in both English and French. Students were to complete a sequenced series of writing assignments first in…

A study found native French-speaking and native English-speaking university students had similar writing skill levels and error patterns despite their position as language-minority or language-majority members of society. It is concluded that language competency is not necessarily linked to language difficulty or to the position of the language.…

This paper examines the effect of formality in three different situations on the oral production of French interlanguage. An analysis of 39 Dutch-speaking students revealed that, contrary to predictions, the more formal situation does not lead to higher accuracy rates. (23 references) (Author)

A study of the interlanguage of bilinguals and multilinguals compared the oral French proficiency of 20 native Swedish-speaking and 20 Finnish-speaking university students as evidenced in error patterns in oral tests. With the exception of phonological and phonetic errors in pronunciation, errors were classified by word class (article, noun,…