There is evidence that the ability to produce syntactically complex structures in a foreign language can be accelerated through a different strategy for teaching writing. A writing strategy is outlined which introduces the student gradually and in a very structured way to the concept of sentence-combining. (CHK)

This concluding article in a series concerning the use of the comma in Spanish gives specific examples of its use from Spanish literature. Concluding remarks outline the major purposes of the comma. (NCR)

Basic to composition skill is control of sentence structure and accuracy in mechanics. Although it is often said that a student should not write what he has not first heard and practiced orally, it might equally well be said that he should not be expected to write grammatical patterns that he has not read, inasmuch as there is a difference in the…

Examines teacher response to learner errors in composition, and proposes rules for coherent writing. (AM)

The foreign student in an American university must be able to communicate in English, orally and in writing, well enough to do college-level academic work. The college or university which admits foreign students has the responsibility either to require a certain level of English proficiency or to provide the means for the student to get the…

The following error made by Sudanese students in their written English is discussed: giving the direct translation of relative pronoun plus personal pronoun from the Arabic pattern instead of the relative pronoun. The structure of the relative clause in English and Arabic is also compared. (SW)

These supplementary materials for students of English as a second or foreign language consist of 48 recorded conversations in the form of short question-and-answer dialogs. (The vocabulary range is 800-1,000 basic words.) The exercises are designed to develop aural skills; students listen to conversations between a native and a non-native speaker,…

To help assess the writing ability of college freshmen studying English as a second language (ESL), this study was undertaken to identify particular structures of subordination associated with writing maturity and to develop a diagnostic instrument to test student control of those structures. Following sentence-generating principles of…

The complex nature of grammar and its relevance to teaching today are explored in the light of modern linguistics. Reviewing the development and fundamental theory of transformational generative grammar, the author points out its substantial merit and also its failure to be understood as exemplary grammatical analysis of language rather than…

The present study reports on exploratory research to determine whether the Aluminum Paragraph, a sentence-combining exercise developed by O'Donnell (Hunt, 1970) to measure the development of syntactic complexity in the writing of native speakers of English, can also serve as a measure of the active syntactic proficiency of learners of English as a…

This textbook presents the study of Chinese through the use of English grammar in the hopes of moderating the extremes of the direct method and of structural analysis. It is intended to cover a one-year course, or six semester hours of introductory Chinese. The book contains 16 lessons, of which the first seven use romanized phonetic forms and…

Writing exercises used as a means of reinforcing language presented and practiced in the spoken medium should include clear cues for the student that can stimulate and guide the writing of connected sentences. Three principles are suggested as being fundamental to the planning and use of effective exercises: (1) focus throughout should be on the…

This quarterly newsletter includes a variety of articles on the teaching of English as a second language. The first article discusses the use of the enquiry method and problem solving as classroom procedures. This approach involves the development of four cognitive processes: framing questions, imposing order on data, making extrapolations, and…