An interview with Alan Decaux of the Academie Francaise focuses on his campaign for each European to know two languages in addition to the mother tongue, using early foreign language education to attain this goal. (MSE)

In a French study based on Spanish research, the communicative effectiveness and grammatical accuracy of foreign language students in generating appropriate classroom questions was investigated. Despite language differences, similarities were found in communication errors, especially incorrect interrogative words and structures, verb tenses and…

Reports on research into the interactive roles played in the verbal comprehension processes by the sequence of textual elements, text-specific prior knowledge, and levels of language proficiency. Four cloze tests were administered to undergraduate and graduate native speakers of English and to undergraduate non-native speakers of English at three…

Assessment of the English writing proficiency of 23 native French speaking students on 3 composition tasks found variance in the qualities of written texts and problem-solving behaviors. Writing expertise was found to affect discourse organization and content, writing complexity, heuristic strategies, and control strategies, while second-language…

Analyzes ethnographic data regarding one prolonged speech event, the negotiation of a driver's license at the Ministry of Transportation in Puno, Peru, from the perspective of Hymes' redefinition of linguistic competence. Implications for the acquisition of second language communicative competence are also discussed. (Author/CB)

Analysis of 38 international teaching assistants' (ITA) performance on general-topic and field-specific SPEAK tests (tests of spoken English proficiency) indicated that, although ITAs as a group did not differ significantly in performance across the two tests, pass or fail recommendations for eight subjects would depend on which test was used. (27…

Suggests that English-as-an-International-Language (EIL) and interlanguage, in recent years, have emerged as two major developments in applied linguistics and language-teaching studies. Three questions are addressed concerning EIL and language teaching. (27 references) (Author/VWL)

The patterns of second grade French immersion students' spontaneous reading in English during the first and second year of their immersion program are reported and compared with their French reading performance. (MSE)

Discusses the concept of language immersion programs in the European context, then focuses on the current trend in Finnish schools to "see what these programs are like." The article concludes with a discussion about the inevitable problems and challenges related to immersion programs. (JL)

Reports on results of a Swiss project designed to provide descriptions of language competence at various cross-over points at which Swiss learners change from one educational sector to another in order to create a coherent information system for course planning, coordination of certification, self-assessment, and reporting achievement. (72…

Current newspaper articles are used in the form of a weekly short quiz in advanced English reading classes at Nara University of Education. The quiz focuses on the articles' immediacy as a motivating factor for Japanese students who have lost some motivation after passing the university entrance examinations. (Contains seven references.) (LB)

Lists 22 activities that might serve as a useful starting point for those embarking on the teaching of literature in the target language for the first time. The key to the activities is to get the students to do the thinking. These activities are designed to build up to and complement conventional essay-writing. (CK)

Focuses on the teaching of grammar in foreign language learning situations. Drawing the learners' attention to the linguistic patterns and providing them with the underlying rules and principles can enhance the learning process as learners usually try to discover rules from the language data by themselves. (71 references) (CK)

Incidental vocabulary learning from context and 2 factors that might influence it, access to a dictionary and verbal ability, were examined among 112 second-year university students. Results indicate that subjects learned more words while reading for meaning, but high verbal ability students and those using a dictionary learn more. (71 references)…

In a follow-up project, this study examined how and when six university language teachers actually used English and the target language in the classroom. Results suggest that switches to English may be made to help maintain classroom order, to create solidarity or empathy, to cover lack of experience or strategies, or to rephrase or modify their…