Most studies on task-based language learning focus on the oral performance of advanced level learners of English as a second language (ESL), while little research examines the written performance of beginning language learners in non-ESL contexts. This exploratory study aims to address this gap, by examining the effect of pre-writing tasks on…

Language testing and second language acquisition research are both concerned with proficiency in the second language; given this shared interest, the rapprochement between these two domains may prove revealing and productive not only in terms of teaching practices, but also in taking a wide view of language, ranging across cognition, society and…

The theme of this volume, complexity, accuracy and fluency (CAF) as dimensions of second language production, proficiency and development, represents a thriving area of research that addresses two general questions that are at the heart of many studies in second language acquisition and applied linguistics: What makes a second language (L2)…

The research project reported in this chapter consists of three studies in which syntactic complexity, lexical variation and fluency appear as dependent variables. The independent variables are task complexity and proficiency level, as the three studies investigate the effect of task complexity on the written and oral performance of L2 learners of…

This chapter will present a research synthesis of a series of studies, termed here the Ealing research. The studies use the same general framework to conceptualise tasks and task performance, enabling easier comparability. The different studies, although each is self-contained, build into a wider picture of task performance. The major point of…

This study investigated how task complexity affected native and non-native speakers' speaking performance in terms of a measure of communicative success (functional adequacy), three types of fluency (breakdown fluency, speed fluency, and repair fluency), and lexical diversity. Participants (208 non-native and 59 native speakers of Dutch) carried…

The incidence of nativelikeness in adult second language acquisition is a controversial issue in SLA research. Although some researchers claim that any learner, regardless of age of acquisition, can attain nativelike levels of second language (L2) proficiency, others hold that attainment of nativelike proficiency is, in principle, impossible. The…

Article focused on the acquisition of sign language by chimpanzees in comparison with the acquisition of spoken languages and sign languages by human children. (Editor/RK)

This paper documents the methodological study which was undertaken to discover the best way to obtain high quality tape-recorded samples of casual, spontaneous speech from children in kindergarten through Grade 3. All children interviewed were from schools in areas qualifying for compensatory education programs under Title I of the Elementary and…

Examines the relationship of phonological characteristics of children's imitative utterances to the characteristics of spontaneous utterances in early stage I. The findings indicated that, while these imitative utterances were subject to the same production constraints, they were not subject to the same selection and avoidance rules operative in…

Special issue devoted to research and the teaching of French in the elementary school. (VM)

Survey supported by the Social Science Research Council in London, the Ford Foundation, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique in Paris, and the Universities of York and Strasbourg. (VM)

Based on a portion of author's Ph.D. dissertation, Communicative Development and Children's Answers to Questions," University of Wisconsin, 1970. (Author/RD)

Discusses linguistic competence and performance and how analyzing second language learners' errors can provide clues about their interlanguage, which is useful not only for pedagogical reasons, but also for the forwarding of general linguistic theory. (EKN)