This essay asserts the importance for English/Language Arts educators to become conversant with the features of Black Language and the cultural and historical foundations of this speech genre as a rule-bound, grammatically consistent pattern of speech. These features go beyond grammar to include such conventions as a reliance on storytelling as a…

This article describes two complementary research projects into lexical patterning and frequency in general and academic English. The research suggests that treating current popularly used wordlists such as the General Service List (GSL) and the Academic Word List (AWL) as distinct constructs is of questionable merit. Rather, there are strong…

Argues that where Spanish is in contact with Quechua, the Spanish present perfect, preterite, and pluperfect are in contrast on the basis of a spatio-temporal parameter derived from the notion of present relevance. These innovative uses come from interaction between semantic systems of Quechua and Spanish and are consistent with universals of the…

Part of a 20-year Yugoslav Serbocroatian-English Contrastive Project, this study is intended to make students, teachers, textbook writers, and scholars aware of elements in the system of English modals that might cause difficulties to the native Serbocroatian-speaking learner of English. An eclectic method of contrastive analysis consisting of…

A questionnaire used to elicit from university students their uses for, attitudes about, and problem areas in French vocabulary learning is presented and discussed. In the questionnaire, a series of brief lexical exercises tests understanding of word similarities and commonalities, lexical functions, registers, antonyms, paraphrasing,…

This book includes 85 ideas for the teaching of grammar, contributed by teachers of English as a Second Language from varied countries. The ideas are organized in 10 sections that include specific aspects of grammar and grammar topics at the discourse level. These include: noun phrases and clauses (adjectives and nouns, articles, subject-verb…

This elementary school, intermediate level curriculum guide for English as a second language (ESL) contains introductory sections on the program's educational objectives and philosophy, outlines for 10 units on basic elements of grammar, and an appendix. Each unit outline includes a listing of structural items, cultural concepts, lexical items,…

The instructional materials in French are designed for use by language trainers of Peace Corps volunteers serving in francophone Tunisia, to supplement situational language and grammar instruction. A brief introductory section offers strategies for teaching verb tenses. The diverse materials that follow include lists of situational questions in…

Demonstrates how a constructivist approach to teacher education helps inexperienced teachers understand learning and teaching of aspect, a core grammatical concept. By consciously experiencing the process of narration, apprentice teachers construct deeper awareness of form/meaning aspectual correlations of the target language. More generally,…

Six autistic children, age 3-6, and 6 children with Down syndrome were followed over a period of 12-26 months. Autistic children followed the same general developmental path as the Down syndrome children in the acquisition of grammatical and lexical aspects of language. (Author/JDD)

Patterns of use of the French particles "bon, (eh) ben, and enfin" were analyzed in a corpus of spontaneous multispeaker conversation. Results show that each particle marks a particular type of discontinuity in the discourse. Turn-initial and turn-medial patterns are described for each. (17 references) (Author/MSE)

The diverse population of a community college requires strategies that heighten motivation and reduce frustration of students trying to master complex foreign language grammatical structures. A "package approach" is described for teaching all object pronouns as extra material for students to enjoy. (Contains five references.) (Author/LB)

The text covers the phonology and grammar of the variety of Inupiaq, an Eskimo language, spoken in northwestern Alaska. A introductory section explains and maps the geographic distribution of Inupiaq dialects. Subsequent chapters address these topics: pronunciation; phonological processes in Inupiaq; Inupiaq morphology; intransitive verbs;…

The Concept Attainment Model is a teaching strategy based on analysis of the nature of concepts and how they are acquired. Using this theory, three strategies for second language instruction have been developed: the reception, selection, and unorganized materials strategies. In the reception strategy, the most structured, students must be guided…

Proposes a system of classifying and forming words in French based on several major word "families" grouped according to their grammatical bases and the types of derivations emerging from them as an effective approach to vocabulary development. (MSE)