Teams of two college freshmen and two college seniors, or one freshman and one senior, solved factually oriented problems cooperatively. Subjects on a team worked in adjoining rooms and exchanged information by means of handwritten notes. Performance was assessed on the time required to solve problems and on behavioral measures of activity.…

To address theoretical claims for the importance of negotiated interaction to the comprehension of second language (L2) input, different classroom interactional behaviors of L2 learners were compared. Results indicated that direct participation in negotiation was most effective in facilitating comprehension of less-advanced students; however, this…

Neighborhood size and neighborhood frequency were orthogonally varied in two experiments on Italian nonwords. In Experiment 1, an inhibitory effect of neighborhood frequency on visual lexical decision was found: The presence of one high-frequency neighbor increased response latencies and error rates to nonwords. By contrast, no effect of…

Presents findings of ethnographic research on children's talk and behavior, specifically routines in spontaneous peer play and verbal routines in structured activities. Concludes that instructional strategies should incorporate some of the features of children's play routines and peer culture. (SRT)

Reviews research that demonstrates parallels between general linguistic and cognitive processes in human language acquisition and avian acquisition of song and discusses how such research may provide new insights into the processes of second-language acquisition. (Author/CB)

A study examined interactional patterns in interviews that characterize elicitation of one text type, description, including type/mixture of questions asked by the fieldworker and the speaker's response. Subjects (n=137) were of three ethnic groups and three socioeconomic levels. Results suggest questioning strategy can have strong, predictable…

Investigated incidental language-learning by subjects using multimedia as a self-study and mandatory component of an undergraduate module. Language items recalled and reused while subjects were engaged in a meaning-focused task were compared with those in two multimedia applications for evidence of incidental learning. Analysis compared language…

Compares interactional rules in the lessons of a teacher who taught in a culturally congruent way and one who did not. Concludes that control over topic of discussion was maintained only by the teacher who used culturally congruent interactional patterns, and that the lessons of the other teacher were frequently sidetracked because of conflicts…

A study was conducted to determine what specific activities parents use to develop language in prekindergarten, kindergarten, and first and second grade children. A questionnaire about language related activities consisted of general information regarding the parents and children, followed by 15 statements that the parents checked according to the…

This collection of articles on language teaching and language acquisition theories includes: "Enseignement des langues et theories de l'acquisition. Introduction au colloque" ("Language Teaching and Theories of Acquisition. Introduction to the Colloquium") (Rene Richterich); "Apprendre une langue dans l'interaction verbale" ("Language Learning in…

This study is a partial replication of a set of studies conducted to investigate the effects of unequal status on speech variation. It was found that, in some respects, first- and second-language variation may be quantitatively different. (52 references) (JL)

This study compared communication and interaction patterns in a college class in Dutch as a second language. Subjects were 16 native-English-speaking students. Two lessons, one taught using cooperative learning (CL) and one using teacher-centered instruction (TC), were videotaped and analyzed. The CL lesson consisted of a group reading game. The…

In studying the role of context in speech act performance, the tradition has been to use controlled elicitation instruments that allow for manipulation of social dimensions. The assumption is that by controlling social context, all respondents will assess social relations very similarly, although little research has dealt with the validity of this…

To analyze and compare specific oral communication behaviors of primary school pupils who score high on reading and language tests with those who score low, a study was conducted on approximatley 200 students who were classified as (1) high language, (2) high reading, (3) low language, or (4) low reading according to their scores on the…

Discourse is basically interactive. This is clear in conversation, but the concept can be extended to written language. Written text can be analyzed as spoken discourse. The methodology of English text studies has adhered too much to a textual approach and even extended it to spoken data. Another approach would be to begin with the spoken form of…