While interest in second language vocabulary knowledge has increased, vocabulary testing remains largely confined to the quantitative measurement of discrete items. More qualitative measures are needed to assess how well particular words are known. Research has characterized word knowledge in two ways: as a set of components or aspects, and as an…

In this course text on second language acquisition, the latest research of Halle and Chomsky, Lenneberg, Hatch, Larsen-Freeman, Dulay and Burt, and Krashen is presented. The text covers such topics as the effects of environment, age, and personality on second language acquisition; the role of the first language; and error analysis. Enough has been…

Three studies comparing the respective roles of interlanguage universals and natural language transfer in determining learners' judgments of grammaticality used college students of French in their second, third, and fourth semesters as subjects. In the first experiment, the subjects were exposed to both grammatical and four types of ungrammatical…

In the comprehension approach to second language instruction, the major procedure is to provide students with comprehensible input, which it is the students' responsibility to understand. The aim is to encourage nucleation of the target language, that is the crystallization of the rule system. Teaching procedures focus on strategies for implicit…

This paper attempts a brief account of recent trends in interlanguage studies. Interlanguage may be defined as a separate linguistic system which results from a learner's attempted production of a target language norm. According to the recreation hypothesis, this is a dynamic system of increasing complexity, whereas, according to the restructuring…

Advocates a methodology for teaching second languages which would combine the most effective aspects of the audiolingual habit theory and the cognitive code learning theory. (TL)

Shows the necessity of foreign language education for cognitive and attitudinal purposes as well as for utilitarian reasons. Foreign language learning/teaching can be of great educational value when it follows the thread of the logical and psychological steps in the creative/discovery procedure. A learning algorithm is mapped on page 61. See FL…

Reports on 2 investigations of problems of teaching adults (ages 18-40) vs. teaching pupils 10 and 11 years old. Differences are observed in character, temperament, motivation, work capacity, mental processes. Learning ability increases with degree of education rather than age alone. This fact must be considered in a differentiated methodology.…

FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY IN SCHOOLS SHOULD BE PREDICATED ON THE NEED OF SOCIETIES TO COEXIST WITH OTHER CONTEMPORARY NATIONAL CULTURES. IN A WORLD THAT CONSISTS OF A LARGE NUMBER OF HISTORICALLY DETERMINED, SEPARATE CULTURES, LANGUAGE ALONE CAN PRESENT THE LINGUISTICALLY CONDITIONED THOUGHT PATTERNS, THE "REALITY," OF A SPECIFIC CULTURE. LANGUAGE…

Preliminary results from a longitudinal study of English-speaking children and adults learning Dutch in natural situations suggest that 12- to 15-year-olds learned faster than either older or younger subjects during their first 6 months in Holland. All age differences had disappeared in a group of advanced subjects (English-speakers who had been…

The thesis of the paper is that the process of learning a second language, if successful, is the same as that of learning a first one. The paper discusses various objections that have been raised against this thesis, and it discusses the considerable body of research which explores it. It examines the appropriateness of the research data for…

This article describes an experiment undertaken to analyze the learning habits of Latin students in Germany, discusses the implications therein for programed instruction, and relates the advantages of such instruction. In the experiment, students were found to confuse similar words which had been presented together in instruction (e.g.…

A study was conducted to determine if informal learners of ESL had the same acquisition order of morphemes as formal learners have and to find out what would happen to the established order if only certain of the grammatical morphemes were explained and drilled. Instruction did not change acquisition order. (Author/KM)

A self-observation and self-report procedure is proposed that will assist teachers in discovering their students' learning strategies and may generate knowledge about the second language learning process. Transcriptions of segments of interviews with four students illustrate the procedure involved in eliciting student strategies. (Author/RM)

Argues for a teacher role in research on learning processes and views a teacher's task as twofold: to discover what students do as they perform foreign language tasks, and to implement procedures in which strategies of skillful students provide a basis for remediation of strategies of unskillful students. (Author/EJS)