Within the same learning context, learners' outcomes in terms of oral fluency vary greatly. This study tracked the relative contributions that first language (L1) and initial second language (L2) fluency skill and working memory (WM) made to L2 fluency development. We assessed the performance of French-speaking Grade 6 learners' (n = 47, mean age:…

Reports the results of an experiment designed to identify and define learning behaviors characteristic of successful adult students in an intensive language program. Findings are interpreted in terms of an information processing model. (AM)

The study described here sought to identify and define "learning behaviors" characteristic of those adult students who were highly successful in acquiring listening and speaking fluency in French in an intensive language training program. Data were collected from behavioral observation of students in the classroom, in-depth interviews with them,…

A study of second language learning processes had three goals: to establish a grounded theory on the role of tension, both euphoric and dysphoric, in the formal language learning process; to provide a comprehensive ethnography of the 7-week intensive beginners' class in the French School of Middlebury College (Vermont); and to demonstrate how a…

The Masters Degree in International Business Program at the University of South Carolina, begun in June 1974, has as its unique feature the emphasis on "lifelong experience." This emphasis affects both the student and the department. From the first year of the program (the basic features of which are intensive training in language,…