This study investigated English teachers' use of learners' L1 (Arabic) in college classrooms in Kuwait. The purpose of the study was three-fold: (1) to describe the functions for which L1 was employed by the teachers, (2) to explore the affective, sociolinguistic, and psycholinguistic factors that may have led teachers to use L1 in L2 teaching,…

Discusses teaching students to be sensitive to the nuances of word choice, intonation patterns, slang, and grammatical deviations in a second language. Suggests some classroom techniques to develop this awareness. (EKN)

It is proposed that many students are unable to distinguish between unguarded writing patterns and literate or expository ones, and it is becoming increasingly necessary in writing instruction to clarify and impose the distinction between these patterns. This problem is confounded by current trends toward exclusively spoken language in the…

Suggests that the acquisition of German syntactic patterns can be facilitated by providing 10 rules for German word order at the beginning of the first semester of instruction. The 10 rules and illustrative examples are included as well as notes on their use. Two sample student handouts are appended. (SED)

Consistent areas of difficulty for Navajo and Chicano speakers learning English as a second language are summarized. Exercises to correct these specific problems are cited, using a contrastive approach. (HTH)

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,…

A review of research on second-language speaking and its instruction focuses on (1) methodological issues concerning the form/function dichotomy and their implications for teacher and learner interaction; (2) the nature and scope of current teaching materials, particularly with regard to their representations of speaking interaction; and (3)…

This discussion of English participles is intended to aid teachers of English as a second language in both understanding and teaching their use. The forms, functions (as verbs and adjectives), and meanings of participles are first outlined, and an approach for presenting this information to students is detailed. It begins with establishing a…

A system for classifying (coding) translations of sentence-length or similar material is presented and illustrated with codings of entries in the "Dictionary of Foreign Phrases and Classical Quotations." Problems in coding are discussed, relating especially to intertextuality, intention, and ownership. The system is intended for pedagogic use, and…

Issues in the teaching of grammar in a second language are explored, and classroom presentation methods are discussed. The first chapter introduces four views of grammar and its use: as description; terminology; rules; and pattern. Each is illustrated with examples from instructional materials in several languages. In the second chapter, the…

Examines why the French verb of motion "passer" is used so much more widely in French than its English cognate "pass" is in English and identifies features of "passer" that distinguish it from similar motion verbs in French, concluding that the key is its relatively neutral semantic content. English avoids the…

Examines the nature and structure of idioms and idiomatic language and offers suggestions for teaching them. Topics addressed include the relationship between idioms and erroneous language, idioms' appropriateness in context, proverbs, and metaphors. Some exercises are included. (Author/MSE)

The phenomenon of language is discussed and suggestions are made for using its unique aspects to enhance classroom second language teaching and learning. Five main points are made about language: (1) it differs in kind, not simply in degree, from other species' communicative behaviors; (2) the wonder of human language is rivaled by only one other…

It is argued that many teachers of English for speakers of other languages (ESOL), in attempting to help students deal with the complex task of developing cohesion in their writing, focus on use of functional connectives such as conjunctions while overlooking use of content lexical ties (such as synonymy and hyponymy) despite their usefulness in…

A discussion of passive verb forms and the passive voice attempts to explain the nature of passives and to offer composition teachers some reference points for teaching them. Twelve arguments are proposed to explain resistance to the teaching of passives; each is termed a continuum in order to help assess understandings and attitudes. The 12…