A kindergarten teacher recounts her experiences with a southeast Asian student as he progresses with the English language. The "beautiful book," in which the boy would illustrate words and dictate appropriate stories for the teacher to transcribe, was instrumental in the boy's language acquisition. (HTH)

Reports on the objectives and phases of a research project seeking to discover the relationship between grammar as learned in the native language and as learned in a second language. (AM)

All the irregularities of all common French verbs are reduced to five categories in the "passe simple." This system facilitates learning the tense without memorizing each irregular verb independently. (PMJ)

This article discusses the historical background of bilingual education and the directions bilingual education has taken in the United States, Canada, Britain, France, and other European countries. Findings concerning the effectiveness of bilingual programs are reported. (CFM)

A summary is given of a research conference held in Montreal in November 1975. Six themes of the conference are outlined and discussed: identification of program goals for evaluation; program structure and evaluation; program product and evaluation; process of second language acquisition, dissemination of information; responsibilities of the…

Reflects upon the nature of theory-driven computer assisted second language learning (CALL), particularly as it relates to the courseware development process. The study examines the implications for theory-driven CALL as well as the concept of "fit" between the theoretical framework or pedagogy and the computer's capabilities. The study addresses…

Describes individual assessment cards devised by an English-as-a-Foreign-Language teacher in Japan. This system consists of giving each student her own individual assessment card at the beginning of each lesson. The focus of the information recorded on the card relates to the process of learning English. (Author/VWL)

A theoretical framework is presented for understanding difficulties in foreign language learning, based upon a linguistic coding model that hypothesizes deficits in phonological, syntactic, and semantic information processing. Incidence of linguistic coding problems in 22 college-enrolled or college-bound students who petitioned to have the…

Autonomous language learning is justified by three arguments: the ideological, the psychological, and the economic. This paper discusses how teachers can use autonomous learning as an approach to the curriculum as a whole, bridging the gap between public classroom activities and private learning activity, and examining all practices from the…

Discusses the question of aptitude from within an information-processing perspective, examines how aptitude is conceptualized in this framework, and discusses one possible component of L2 aptitude: working memory. (56 references) (Author/CK)

Examines diaries kept by 18 anglophone high-school students of French while they spent 3 months in Quebec as part of an exchange program. Research focused on insights into language-learning process provided by student diarists; affective factors in language learning; extralinguistic benefits of exchange; and ways in which the diaries supplement…

Focuses on the teaching of language "per se," in the part of the lesson that often precedes work with a passage and the interactional activities that result from that exploitation. The optimum three-way split between formal language work, grammar-awareness raising, and communicative activities will vary from class to class. (CK)

This article establishes the case for making students aware of their own language learning styles, so that they may gain some control over their own learning processes. The specific focus is on the cognitive styles of field dependence and field independence, which are thought to be most relevant for foreign language learning. (32 references) (MDM)

Proposes a set of priorities for using language testing as an instrumental factor in upgrading second-language learning. These priorities are proposed as an outgrowth of the conviction that language tests can and should play an important role in the improvement of foreign-language teaching and learning. (JL)

Three hypotheses of second-language learning (Interference Hypothesis, Input Hypothesis, Fundamental Difference Hypothesis) are applied to the case of Polish-born English novelist Joseph Conrad, to see how well they explain his language learning. The first two hypotheses fail to explain adequately his mastery of written English, whereas the last…