This study examines the application of corpus linguistics in English language teaching (ELT) in Colombia, where its practical adoption remains limited compared to many developed countries. Data were gathered through a survey of English instructors at Colombian universities to assess their familiarity with corpus linguistics. Findings indicate…

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,…

This paper quantifies differences in speaking rates in a first and second language, and examines the effects of slower rates on the speakers' abilities to convey information. The participants were 14 fluent (CEF B2/C1) English L2 speakers who held the same oral presentation twice, once in English and once in their native Swedish. The temporal…

In recent years, many European countries have witnessed a rapid implementation of the CLIL approach at tertiary level. In Spain, although English has been introduced as the language of instruction in some master and doctoral courses, the application of the CLIL approach is still isolated. Similarly, little research has been done into CLIL…

Demonstrates how, by following the presumed and attested historical development of the German relative clause, students can be led through the formation of the structure in a simple three-step progression using familiar operations that impart the clause's various functions and meanings. (Author/CB)

Suggests four methods to help students make intelligent guesses and expand their Spanish vocabulary through induction of cognate patterns, including making students consciously aware of cognate patterns; emphasizing general patterns of English abstract words and their corresponding Spanish cognates; enhancing inductive learning strategies through…

Instead of being completely arbitrary, the meaning of many idioms is "motivated" by their original, literal usage. In an FLT context, this offers the possibility of presenting idioms in ways that promote insightful learning rather than "blind" memorization. Associating an idiom with its etymology has been shown to enhance retention. This effect…

Prepositions are usually presented as prepositions of time or place, and prepositions associated with certain verbs and adjectives. However, this type of presentation overlooks the bases for preposition usage and in turn fails to convey those bases to learners. An alternative approach to the analysis of prepositions from a notional perspective is…

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)

Presents four chief categories of common mistakes in French along with some of their causes and cures. (EKN)

The introduction to German adjective endings provided in most current college textbooks is seen as inadequate and contributing to the myth that endings are unapproachable. Students should be able to cope with an early introduction if the subject is approached honestly, in English, and without excessively high expectations. (MSE)

The German preposition "bei" has several meanings and uses. If the basic meaning of "bei" is taken as "abstract setting," the analysis can be extended naturally to account for the more concrete locational uses such as references to activities or specific circumstances. (CB)

An analysis of two textbook series commonly used to teach university-level Chinese identifies obsolete conventions, expressions, and classifiers and other problems in the series, published over 20 years ago, and suggests some updated supplementary materials that could be used with the series. (CB)

Both aural-oral practice with the sounds of English and formal rules are important in pronunciation instruction, and have a role to play in interlanguage development. Formal rules provide self-evaluation for purposes of self-correction, a process which allows learners to judge or self-correct their own utterances against rule-generated predictions…

A study examined the occurrence of specific grammatical structures (double object pronouns, nominalization with "lo," demonstrative adjectives/pronouns, and possessive adjectives/pronouns) in oral samples of native speaker Spanish and compared the results with the treatment of the structures in six beginning-level college Spanish textbooks.…