A language-specific test-item is one which includes a distractor which is a predictable mistake made by Persian speakers, and determined by syntactic and lexical contrastive analysis of Persian and English. The term 'universal' is used for a test-item which does not contain contrastive distractors as defined here. (Author)

The technique explained here can increase a foreign student's awareness of English grammatical and rhetorical structures. Structural paraphrase is a syntactic reformulation of difficult phrases with minimal vocabulary changes. The technique is illustrated and suggestions are given for class presentation. (CHK)

This material was designed to present the essential features of English phrase and clause structure, for the benefit of both native speakers and learners of English as a second language. The author has followed a "deliberately eclectic" approach. The diagrams are developments of the type discussed and exemplified in Hockett, 1958, and…

The properties of "do", its distribution and meaning, are discussed. "Do" is one of the most common error-zones for Indian learners of English. Two analyses of "do" which account for the distribution and meaning of this element are presented. According to the transformational approach, "do" is introduced in…

This article deals with teaching vocabulary to advanced students of English through collocation, i.e., teaching a word in meaningful contexts. Ten collocation exercises are provided. (AM)

The results from three studies using data provided by the SLOPE Test and oral interviews are reported. The studies include: (1) a comparison of rank orders obtained over a period of time; (2) a comparison of rank orders obtained in instrument-elicited and spontaneous speech; and (3) a comparison of results obtained using two methods of analysis,…

Errors made by Finnish university students in the use of the English article were analyzed using two types of error analyses: a traditional type of error analysis to provide an overall view of the errors found in students' compositions; and a multiple-choice test devised on the basis of the findings and shortcomings of the first test. With the…

This paper investigates the second language acquisition of interrogative-word questions in English. It is shown that the data from some bilingual English speakers at Pan American University are comparable to the data noted by others for both second and first language acquisition of interrogative word questions. In particular, interrogative-word…

This paper examines the factors which govern the use of infinitives and gerunds after verbs and uses American literature and periodicals since 1945 for examples of this usage. The analysis was undertaken in order to clarify this usage for those teaching or learning English as a second language. Studies yielded three general rules for the use of…

This paper describes a reading program researched, designed, and developed by Consultants in Total Education for primary students whose mother tongue is other than English. The program includes teaching strategies that trigger universal learning strategies. The program is divided into four general stages, each stage containing particular…

Discussion of eight major works relevant to a linguistic description of Puerto Rican English seeks to contribute to a more unified theory of bilingualism and second language acquisition. The author's observations on phonological, lexical and morphological, and syntactic implications are presented in an attempt to coordinate the theory. The works,…

This is a contrastive analysis of English and Modern Literary Arabic. Part one deals with phonology, including suprasegmentals and orthography. Part two deals with morphology, part three with sentence structure, part four with verb phrases, and part five with noun phrases. These sections emphasize structures that present problems to the…

Two monographs are included in this volume--Enkvist's "On Defining Style, an Essay in Applied Linguistics," and Spencer and Gregory's "An Approach to the Study of Style." The first monograph discusses the history of stylistics (linguistic and literary), different approaches to the problem of definition of style theory, and offers some remarks on…

The use of case frames of verbs as a control for the teaching of vocabulary items has a number of distinct advantages over other controls. The case frame associated with a particular vocabulary item, or with a particular semantic class, would be the same in the native and the target language (English). This would have the advantage of allowing the…

This contrastive analysis of English and Thai is designed to introduce ESL teachers to many of the differences between Thai and English. The material is intended to assist the teacher in defining the problems that Thai speakers are likely to have in learning English. The introduction includes background information on Thailand and its people. Part…