Reports on three research studies which investigate different aspects of some of the factors thought to inhibit language development. (RB)

Presents background information on Chinese writing, discusses its defects, suggests how to develop Chinese writing, and offers opinions about research in Chinese writing. (Author/DB)

To write well is not a singular ability; it utilizes critical thinking, creativity, and a feeling for language. An examination of a number of pieces of writing by elementary school pupils shows that some are highly imaginative while others are informative reports, simple statements of events, colorful descriptions, or various forms of poetry.…

This study of written language development and instruction of elementary school children found that realistic approaches are needed in teaching language usage, dialects, and registers. These approaches should include a nonrepetitive instructional system accounting for different linguistic abilities, a diagnostic evaluation of children's written…

Writing samples representing argumentation, exposition, narration, and description were gathered from 51 fifth-grade pupils. Significant differences were found among the four modes of writing and among high-, medium-, and low-ability groups for T-unit length, clauses per T-unit, and clause length. Argumentation produced the most complex writing,…

Considers the use of language by children vs. that by teachers in the classroom and how language is crucial for effective learning processes. (RK)

The question of the sequencing of skills is an important issue in language policy and curriculum design in general, and even more so in the case of a diglossic language such as Arabic. This paper tries to investigate the implications of diglossia on the order of linguistic skills acquisition in Arabic among Hebrew speakers in Israel. (JL)

The purposes of this study were (1) to provide a method for the quantitative study of grammatical (syntactic) structures which is coherent, systematic, and broad, yet capable of refinement to accommodate details, and (2) to search for the developmental trends in the frequency of various grammatical structures written by students of average…

The need for an objective index of language development has long been recognized, and various means of measuring language growth have been proposed. This study compares two of the indexes that have recently been devised for measuring language growth. Its specific purposes are (1) to examine the correlation between mean T-unit length and syntactic…

Writing samples representing argumentation, exposition, narration, and description were gathered from 52 fourth-grade pupils. Significant differences were found among the four modes of writing and among high, medium, and low ability groups, for T-unit length and clauses per T-unit; lesser differences also were found for clause length.…

Students at first, fourth, seventh, and tenth grade levels and at graduate levels chose conjunctions "and" and "but" in two-clause sentences with varying degrees of logical relationship, with similar or contrasting clauses. Grade, type of relationship, and similarity were variables in a 5 x 3 x 2 repeated measures analysis of response to logical…

This research project was designed to analyze by quantitative methods a corpus of writing produced by four groups of American college students enrolled in German courses and by one group of professional German writers. Analysis was undertaken in order to determine whether or not significant quantitative differences in the use of selected syntactic…

The purpose of this study was to locate those measurable criteria of responsiveness to language which have not been utilized to any significant extent in standardized tests. The project involved creating a testing instrument, reviewing of the instrument by a panel of experts, and applying the resultant test to a small population of college…

This book is addressed to those about to embark on the teaching of second language writing as well as to those already engaged in the field. Teachers are dedicated to postering growth in writing; researchers want to investigate the questions that shed the greatest light on the problem in the field. The concerns of both these groups are addressed…

Reports on a large-scale investigation among Turkish and Moroccan children in Dutch primary schools. The focus is on these children's proficiency, respectively in Turkish and Arabic and Dutch. and on the development of skills in both languages. (26 references) (VWL)