The use of "interpretative tasks" is advocated in the teaching of short stories. Such tasks encourage learners to explore stories beyond the level of pure narrative and also encourage development of a "feel" for creative uses of English in literature. (Author/CB)

Discusses various definitions of markedness in terms of second language acquisition and describes a study testing one such definition which found that second language learners did not accept preposition stranding in the second language but did accept double object construction and suggested that transfer took place only with one of two marked…

Reports on a longitudinal study of young immigrants' spoken Danish during the first months of their stay, focusing on the Albanian-, Vietnamese-, and English-speaking adolescents' syntactic development from a functional perspective. Changes in early syntax are seen as being rooted in cognitive as well as interactional dimensions of language use.…

Investigates the relationship between bilingualism and metalinguistic awareness in Puerto Rican Spanish- and English-speaking children. Findings indicate that native language proficiency, as well as the degree of bilingualism, affect metalinguistic awareness, and that these effects interacted with the types of items in the metalinguistic tasks.…

Longitudinal data regarding three children's learning of English as a second language in a classroom setting support the hypothesis that the distribution of grammatical variants in learner speech is sensitive to linguistic context. Results suggest that the learners acquired the target language variants in "pronoun contexts" before "noun contexts."…

A study of English as a second language students' generalization of second-language learning showed that maximal generalization of learning took place from structures that were typologically more marked to those structures that were typologically less marked, and not the reverse. (Author/CB)

This feature consists of instructional materials to be used for vocabulary development and language use in French instruction. Specific areas covered include advertising, travel, and journalism. (Text is in French.) (CLK)

Using a fictitious text, the article discusses the "sexism" in current spoken English, which discriminates against the female sex consciously and by negligence. Objectionable words are listed. An exercise for Secondary Grade II is offered, with sentences to be written, avoiding the "sexist" element. (IFS/WGA)

The Japanese Keigo system is the whole of the grammatical rules related to expressions of respectful or pejorative feelings concerning all persons involved in speech acts. This article proposes a new approach to the problem of teaching this system at the elementary level. (CLK)

This feature consists of exercises in reading, vocabulary, grammar, and language use for the student of Spanish as a second language. (Text is in Spanish.) (CLK)

This feature consists of exercises in reading, vocabulary, grammar, and language use for the student of Spanish as a second language. (Text is in Spanish.) (CLK)

Because Chinese language textbooks were judged inadequate in teaching vocabulary dealing with everyday life in the U.S. and in China, new methods and materials were introduced into an oral Chinese course. Prepared discussion topics, Chinese films, soap operas, and shortwave radio broadcasts were used. (CHK)

Briefly reviews the past two hundred years of American history and examines the present and the immediate future, in an attempt to identify trends that might have importance in foreign language teaching. (CLK)

This chapter provides theoretical argumentation and pedagogical suggestions for legitimizing and capitalizing on first and/or multiple language use in foreign language education. Recent research asserts that foreign language study is intimately bound to issues of learner identity formation, contestation, and transitioning. This chapter assumes…

This chapter responds to an article by Claire Kramsch on the privilege of nonnative speakers. It agrees with Kramsch that in second language teaching, there is no single standard of native speaker language to target, since the cultural and linguistic reality of a given language is too complex and multifaceted to allow identification of…