Argues that a process/product distinction is an important one to make when evaluating English as a second language programs. Compares this distinction to that between formative and summative evaluation as described by Scriven in 1967, noting that the two reflect different, not competing, perspectives. Outlines the role of classroom-centered…

Comments on an earlier article titled, "Speaking and Writing in the University: A Multidimensional Comparison," questioning the definition of register presented as well as the scope of the study. The authors of the original article respond. (Author/VWL)

Reports on a study which compared the English composition skills of two groups of students from two educational and cultural backgrounds. One group was born and schooled in the U.S.; the other group was from Mexico and had attended school in the U.S. from the third to the eighth grade. (Author/AMH)

Investigates a preemptive focus on form, occasions when either the teacher or a student chose to make a specific form the topic of discourse. Found that in 12 hours of meaning-focused instruction, there were as many preemptive focus-on-form episodes (FFEs) as reactive FFEs (i.e., corrective feedback). (Author/VWL)

Compares holistic scoring of nonnative writing in English with multiple trait assessment and scoring. (JL)

Reports the results of research attempting to document the role of learners' linguistic output in drawing their attention to linguistic form and in acquiring the form. Compares experimental and comparison groups that participated in a pretest, two post-tests, and four learning tasks. (Author/VWL)

Describes a study in which the self-reported language learning behaviors of nonnative English-speaking graduate students were described and then related to the students' gains in language proficiency during the course. Findings indicate that there are two different kinds of learning behaviors that can be accounted for by Krashen's…

A study is reported of how a total of 269 English native speakers and Japanese native speakers at professorial, graduate, and undergraduate levels evaluate and edit English-as-a-Second-Language compositions written by Japanese college students. Factors examined include grammar, clarity of meaning, naturalness, and organization. (44 references)…

This study describes and analyzes differences in student output across ethnicity and gender in a mixed monolingual English and bilingual Spanish/English class in order to understand how second-language oral skills are developed in a mixed classroom. Participant observation, informal interviews, and audiotaped classroom and tutorial interaction…

Quantitative analysis of 1,083 first language and second language academic texts establishes that advanced nonnative-English-speaking students in U.S. universities employ excessively simple syntactic and lexical constructions at median frequency rates significantly higher than those found in basic texts by native English speakers. (Author/VWL)

Compares the events leading to the contrasting educational policies that apply to the placement of language minority students in Britain and the United States. The supportive institutional structures of these policies are examined, and the ways these differences reflect contrasting assumptions about language development and definitions of equality…

Examines the role of tone choice in the classroom communication of international teaching assistants. Compares the tone choices of native-English speaking and nonnative ITAs during their classroom presentations, finding important differences in both the numbers of tone choices and the way tones are used. (Author/VWL)

Reports a comparison of two MA-TESOL programs and suggests some implications of the findings for the TESOL profession. Based on interviews, observations, and written documentation, characteristics of two of the programs are identified that are associated with the larger departments in which the programs are housed. (Author/VWL)

Investigated how meaning is negotiated in two different types of interactions between native and nonnative speakers: a relatively unstructured conversation and a two-way information-gap task. Results suggest conversational interaction has the potential for substantial learning opportunities at multiple levels of interaction even though it offered…

Examines how classroom cultures in the United States and Asia are discursively constructed by researchers in applied linguistics and education. Suggests that the literature of applied linguistics and some in education compares idealized perspectives of U.S. classrooms with more typical images of classrooms in Asia. (Author/VWL)