This study aims to investigate the differences in the realization of request speech act between the IEL (Indonesian English Learners) and the AES (Australian English-Native Speakers), as well as explain the factors influencing these distinctions. The descriptive-qualitative method and discourse completion task (DCT) were used to obtain data in…

This study examines L2 fluency in speaking interactions based on the number and type of utterances. The participants were 25 Korean eighth-grade learners of English as a foreign language. They performed five communicative tasks in groups, and their speaking interactions were audio-recorded and analyzed to measure the frequencies of sentence-level…

In this research paper, we present a novel language learning/training and assessment system that helps people to learn and practice a new language independently at low cost. To achieve an independent-learning workflow, we explore the use of real-time speech recognition, language translation, speech synthesis, and language intelligibility…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether processability theory (PT; Pienemann, 1998, 2005) accounts for the emergence of grammatical forms and structures in comprehension. Sixty-one learners of English participated in oral interviews that elicited a variety of structures relevant to PT. Learners were divided into two groups: those who…

This study investigated interrogative structures most frequently used by native speakers of French, in an attempt to reconcile differences between language forms taught in the French as a foreign language classroom and those that are encountered in authentic input. Radio, television, and magazine interviews provided multiple examples of…

We study the learnability problem concerning the dative alternations in English (Baker, 1979; Pinker, 1989). We consider how first language learners productively apply the double-object and to-dative constructions ("give the book to library"/"give the library the book"), while excluding negative exceptions ("donate the…

Which conditional verb forms proved most difficult for Thai secondary school students to produce, and what errors resulted in written and spoken English, were studied. Data was collected from two tasks: 1) a gap-fill task by 68 twelfth-grade students in an integrated English program at a public high school in Bangkok, Thailand and 2) a spoken task…

The purpose of this research was to ascertain if the reading comprehension skills of English-speaking fifth grade students improve when they study a second language. The research was done in an inner-city elementary school in Rochester, New York. The researcher provided a weekly after-school workshop in foreign languages for a group of children…

While reading or speaking, individuals break up sentences into "meaningful chunks." This is true of any individual with any language background. Failure to do so, in an L2 context, leads to idiosyncrasies, and may possibly create some comprehensibility problems. In this study, native and non-native speakers of English read an authentic text into a…

"Fronting", that is, placing direct and indirect objects at the beginning of the sentence, is a typical characteristic of the "school English" of German pupils. The linguistic analysis of the learning problem is supplemented by pedagogic and methodological considerations. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

This study investigates why researchers have trouble determining when learners acquire inverted and statement forms of yes/no questions. Researchers have difficulty designing studies on this subject because this area of language is not fully rule-governed or systematic. The choice of the form may be based on two speakers' foreknowledge of each…

Describes two experiments which assessed the ability of adult second language (L2) learners to produce and comprehend real, unreal, and past unreal English conditional sentences. Developmental differences are analyzed in relation to distinctive features. The analyses lend support to the explanatory power of markedness theory in explaining L2…

Proposes the "warm-up" exercise, providing sentence patterns and basic vocabulary, for the purpose of stimulating oral communication in the adult foreign language classroom. (AM)

This paper describes an experiment in which the Developmental Sentence Scoring procedure, which has been used successfully for scoring sentence complexity in child language, was examined for its usefulness when applied to adult learners of English as a Second Language. The technique is based upon a developmental scale of syntax acquisition within…

Elliptical sentence structures, i.e., restrictive sentences, play a decisive role in both the conventional and programmed approaches to foreign language instruction. Basic to both these approaches are four distinct phases: presentation, drill, contextualization, and testing. However, it has been proven that the learning process can be maximized…