In Australia the internationalization of education implies an increasing amount of "non-Anglo", predominantly South-East Asian, students from different ethnic and language backgrounds in the classroom. This impacts on the effectiveness of action learning of professional skills, which is highly valued and supported by Australian…

The present study focuses on the task characteristics of reading passages and key sentences in a test of second language reading. Using a new methodological approach to describe variation in test task characteristics and explore how differences in these characteristics might relate to examinee performance, it posed the two following research…

A HyperCard stack using digitized video to provide students of Russian with meaningful exercise in the use of verbal aspect and verbs of motion and position is described. Several problems presented by the Russian verb are defined. Examples of traditional textbook exercises are presented--translations, fill-ins, and picture-based approaches, and…

Twenty-five near native speakers of a second language (L2) were interviewed about the linguistic, sociological, psychological, and emotional reasons involved in the process of fossilization in foreign language learning. All of the subjects considered that their command of the target language was not as good as a native speaker's of that target…

A new series of studies on adults' and infants' perception of phonetic "prototypes," exceptionally good instances of phonetic categories, show that prototypes play a unique role in speech perception. Phonetic category prototypes function like "perceptual magnets" for other stimuli in the category. They attract nearby members of…

This workbook contains "skill sharpening" math problems presented in Spanish. These problems have been designed as supplementary work for students at the eighth grade level. Functions and topics such as addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, decimals, scientific notation (exponents), fractions, symmetry, angles, the metric…

Author examined language needs and the conditions in which adults are currently able to learn a foreign language, posed some problem-questions concerning language needs, finally suggesting three alternatives presented to define the position and role of the learner. (RK)

Presented are personal observations on gifted students in both Japanese and American schools in Japan. (SB)

The formal-functional contrastive analysis approach is suggested as an alternative to both the structural and the transformational contrastive approaches. A theoretical explanation and a practical contrastive technique for the formal-functional approach are given. (CJ)

A study was carried out to obtain systematic quantitative data about the types of verbal behavior used by instructors and students in teaching and learning a foreign language. (Author)

Functional literacy and multivalent vocational training are primary educational needs of migrant workers. These needs must be fulfilled through a worker oriented rather than an employer or nationalistically oriented educational program. (JH)

A discussion of the data obtained from grammaticality judgment tasks argues that despite the light shed by these data on problems of second language acquisition theory, there is not yet adequate knowledge of how to interpret those data within a coherent model of performance of the tasks. Therefore, it is concluded, there is no basis for deciding…

Second language curricula vary in their relative emphases on process and product and on the control exerted by the teacher and learner. Discourse analysis can be used to gain insight into classroom interaction. One model for this kind of analysis classifies utterances according to the structural predictions created by the preceding utterance,…

The field of second language acquisition (SLA) developed from the study of second language teaching, and includes the study of the learning setting, learner variables, the nature of the target language and the learner native language, and the reasons for language learning. Much SLA research to date focuses on one or another of these dimensions…

Curriculum guide for a unit of work on language study for pupils at the junior secondary level. (Author)