The influence of mother-tongue interference is examined on the basis of data from two tests at different levels of English proficiency: a commercial-college level, covering 4-5 years of English studies, involving a composition and translation test, and a preuniversity level, covering 7-8 years of English studies, with a multiple-choice test. A…

Language, considered as a liberal art, is examined in the light of other philosophical viewpoints concerning the nature of language in relation to second language instruction in this paper. Critical of an earlier mechanistic audio-lingual learning theory, translation approaches to language learning, vocabulary list-oriented courses, graduate…

There is a multitude of research on vocabulary methods or strategies, how many relate to second language learners and the importance of vocabulary knowledge to reading comprehension. Researchers have explored the possibility that grouping words in a manner other than the traditional list of nouns, all fitting under a common theme, might be more…

The case study examined the development of English writing skills in a native Russian-speaking college student with no previous instruction in English as a Second Language. It drew on writing samples from 2 years of English language instruction. Theories of first and second language acquisition, especially in written expression, are analyzed in…

A case study of second language development in a college student focused on comparative changes in the development of oral and written skills over a period of two years. The subject was a Russian student of English as a second language who had recently arrived in the United States. Errors and syntactic maturity were analyzed in writing samples…

This collection of essays gives an overview of the different disciplines that inform language teaching and language teacher education. They include the following titles: "The Case for Psycholinguistics" (Bill VanPatten); "The Place of Second Language Acquisition Theory in Language Teacher Preparation" (Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig); "Why Syntactic…

A collection of papers on contrastive linguistics includes: "Prototypes and Equivalence" (Tomasz P. Krzeszowski); "Comparing the Incomparable? English Adjectives in "-able" and Their Rendering in Modern Chinese" (Arthur Mettinger); "Classification and Distribution of Lexical Errors in the Written Work of German Learners of English" (Rudiger…

The language learner is activated by exposure to primary linguistic data in the target language, categorizes that data and deduces from it a system of rules or hypotheses. When the language acquisition process is successful, as is virtually always the case in first language acquisition, the learner's rule system corresponds to that of the speech…

Discourse analysis has provided a methodology for the study of conversational interactions between language learner and native speaker. This study examines the verbal and nonverbal strategies that native speakers use when communicating with second language learners in natural, non-academic, "survival type" settings. The areas discussed include:…

Papers from the 1973 Neuchatel Colloquium in Applied Linguistics are presented. Contents are as follows: "Karttunen's Types of Implication in English and German: A Contrastive Study," W. Abraham; "The Relevance of Generative Semantics for Language Teaching," R. Dirven; "'Be' plus 'ing' Revisited," H. Adamczeski; "The So-Called Deep Structures and…

The basic classroom reading program and the English as a Second Language Program (ESL) in the elementary school are related, yet a gap exists between them. It is suggested that the gap can be bridged in several ways: by bilingual education, through an individualized language experience approach, and by a process called "Bridge English." Bridge…

The interlanguage hypothesis stresses that errors are a normal part of the language learning process. At the same time, in the view of many, the teacher has a responsibility to provide short cuts for the learner through appropriate corrective feedback. Conventionally, this has been taken to imply correction of expression by requiring repetition of…

A study is described of heuristic devices useful in learning both native and second languages. The study concerns particularly the means used by very young students (second and third graders) in vocabulary acquisition and in the establishment of semantic relationships. It was of concern to verify if (1) the children would use their knowledge of…

Twelve Spanish-speaking kindergarteners livinq in Los Angeles were tested for usage of English verb tense morphemes through responses elicited during task situations that were dramatized with the use of toy-like realia. The children were first asked to provide a constructed response to questions, and were then given model sentences for immediate…

This document is the seventh report in the Language Research in Progress (LRIP) series, and lists a wide variety of language-related research projects current between April 1968 and November 1968. Research projects terminated in the six months prior to publication are included as well. Approximately 250 projects in the U.S. and abroad are…