A survey of German language students at all levels at Oklahoma State University sought information on the students' motivation for learning the language, previous exposure to it, attitudes toward the language and its structures, preferred language learning strategies, difficulties with aspects of the language, and actual or anticipated uses of…

Beyond the first several thousand most commonly used words in a language, direct vocabulary instruction is not efficient. Use of inferential skills then becomes the most effective way of learning new vocabulary; it is the way native speakers build their 60,000 word vocabularies. Because the skill is not automatically transferable, it must be…

The conference focused on the importance of using one's language and cultural heritage for the future growth of individuals and the State of Alaska. This conference is a major activity of the Alaska Department of Education in providing training and technical assistance to personnel from the 35 school districts with bilingual-bicultural programs.…

Nineteenth- and twentieth-century models of first and second language reading are examined and compared. Figures are provided of six models that propose relationships among visual input and processes, auditory input, phonological processes, and comprehension. These models illustrate the processes that may be operating in persons who achieve their…

American KFL (Korean as a foreign language) students' communicative success depends to a large extent on their ability to express interpersonal meanings with target-language resources. However, information regarding how KFL students acquire, or fail to learn linguistic politeness through classroom learning is scarce. The nature of this study is…

A description of a contrastive linguistics project in Hungary aiming to augment linguistic theories in the Spanish language and propound theories for scientific and artistic translation. (Text is in Spanish.) (CK)

A course in introductory Greek was introduced as part of a freshman seminar program at William Patterson College of New Jersey. The course was distinctive in that the instructor undertook to learn the subject along with the students. The goal of the course was that the students would learn something about Greek, about language in general and about…

The name "short circuit" has been given to this model because, in many ways, it adequately describes what happens bioelectrically in the brain. The "short-circuiting" factors include linguistic, sociocultural, attitudinal and motivational, neurological, perceptual, and cognitive factors. Research is reviewed on ways in which each one affects any…

This text is designed to enable a student who knows English to gain reading proficiency in Albanian. Part One, which is presented here, includes the first 30 of the 100 units in the complete course. The units include texts from various periods of Albanian writing and include a variety of contents and styles: folklore, biography, news articles,…

This study was designed to compare children and adults on their initial ability to identify and reproduce novel speech sounds and to evaluate their performance after receiving several training sessions in producing these sounds. The novel speech sounds used were two voiceless fricatives which are consonant phonemes in Arabic but which are…

The naturalistic acquisition of Dutch by English speakers of different ages was examined longitudinally to test the hypothesis that second language acquisition is most efficient before the age of puberty when cerebral lateralization is complete. Results did not support this critical period hypothesis for language acquisition. (JMB)

An exploratory study of the effects of sex differences, career choice, cognitive style, and personality characteristics on the effectiveness of language learning strategies for adult learners indicated that these variables affect learners' levels of strategy use and had implications for language teaching and student counseling. (CB)

On the basis of two-phase research conducted in Swedish-speaking elementary schools in Finland (N=348 students), the significance of cultural conditions, such as gender images and social background, was assessed in relation to language learning. Analysis using the Lisrel method indicates that social background influences learning of Finnish. (TJH)

Argues that second-language reading comprehension and its assessment can be usefully divided into two aspects: (1) comprehensions (different levels of comprehension the reader adopts to suit different purposes of reading); and (2) interpretations (different readings of the same text resulting from different background knowledge or preoccupations…

Describes a language-learning simulation based on unedited news obtained directly from one of its major sources. Outlines objectives of both substantive and performance media simulations and their importance to second language learning activities. Provides guidelines on the technology needed to access the news from press agencies. (SED)