Purpose: Bilingual children's speech often contains high percentages of disfluencies in both their languages; however, the distribution of disfluency types and the difference across bilinguals' two languages have received insufficient and inconsistent empirical support. The present research aims to profile "typical" bilingual disfluency…

Tape-recorded conversations provide a basis for analysis of fixed expressions, cliches, filled pauses and false starts in spontaneous speech. The meaning of these findings for second language learning and instruction is discussed. (CHK)

This text was developed to enable students of Spanish to use idiomatic expressions from the early learning stages to the more advanced levels. Students can use idiomatic Spanish as soon as they have learned regular -ER, -AR, and -IR verbs, and as they become more proficient, they can apply their knowledge of the irregular verbs in studying other…

Discusses the literature on interference as the cause of errors in second language speech. A study is reported which shows that interference by the native language is most often the factor responsible for the largest number of mistakes in grammar and vocabulary. (Author/AMH)

Most of what has been taught in the language classroom for a long while has been generally a reflection of the particular concept of language popular among linguistics at the time, but recently this trend has begun to break down. Recent texts are starting to be organized according to considerations besides linguistic criteria, for example,…

Analysis of error patterns in a test taken by 698 Finnish university students shows errors are made in this declining order of frequency: grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, and use. More talkative students were proportionately more proficient per utterance, and higher proficiency also correlated with sex (female) and high matriculation test…

Some basic problems of current lower-division foreign language instruction are discussed from the standpoint of real-life language use, and specific measures for meeting some of the problems are suggested for learning German as a second language. Some of the significant discrepancies between the use of a language in real life and in the language…