This digest discusses the simulated oral proficiency interview (SOPI), a performance-based, tape-mediated speaking test. The SOPI follows the general structure of the oral proficiency interview (OPI) used by government agencies and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) to measure speaking proficiency. Whereas the OPI is…

Evaluates the commonly held idea that girls are better language learners than boys. Results indicate that boys are not weaker in any of the language skill areas tested. Recommends that future research concentrate on the sex and image of the teacher. (EKN)

Discusses the importance of encouraging students not only to study, but to become proficient in a second language. (EKN)

Questions the extent to which attention differentially affects different parts of language and how this differential effect interacts with increased linguistic knowledge. Subjects were native English speaking learners of Italian. (Author/VWL)

Reports on a study that found that both first-language summarizing skills and second language proficiency affect second language summarizing skills, with the exception of inclusion of main ideas and amount of distortion that are more affected by first language summarizing skills. (Author/VWL)

Discusses some of the major developments, issues, and problems in studying the relationship between attitudes and motivation and second-language acquisition and proficiency. (29 references) (GLR)

A review of the arguments (including fossilization, improved language performance, and the role of error correction) supporting a focus on linguistic accuracy and grammar during early second language learning found no research evidence showing this approach to be beneficial. (Author/CB)

A framework for second-language acquisition (SLA) features cognitive processing components: process of analysis and process of control. These processes lead to changes in mental representations that are the basis of learning. The framework can be applied to similarity of first- and second-language learning, the starting point for SLA,…

Explores variation in the performance of one nonnative speaker in three different conversations with friends. The chief difference between the conversations is that the interlocutors use different interactional features that are related to their different levels of proficiency in English. (Author/VWL)

Provides revisions of the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) writing guidelines. The proficiency guidelines are presented in a top-down fashion, rather than in a bottom-up order, thereby allowing for more positive descriptive statements for each level and sublevel, stressing what language users can do with the language…

Gestures are often used while speaking to aid in the speaker's packaging of the verbal message and/or to aid the listener in decoding the message. The ways in which bilinguals use gestures are reviewed in this article. Researchers have predicted that bilinguals' gesture use is related to bilinguals' language proficiency. However, no clear pattern…

This study investigates whether or not abstract-level linguistic features, not successfully acquired abroad, will be acquired once the advanced language learner returns from a study abroad program and is exposed to linguistic instruction. The goal of the study was to measure the development of the Spanish subjunctive in adverbial clauses collected…

Firth and Wagner (1997) questioned the dichotomies nonnative versus native speaker, learner versus user, and interlanguage versus target language, which reflect a bias toward innateness, cognition, and form in language acquisition. Research on lingua franca English (LFE) not only affirms this questioning, but reveals what multilingual communities…

In Japanese, self-qualification, or a qualifying segment of talk that reduces the force of the speaker's own utterances, is frequently introduced with contrastive markers, such as "demo," "kedo," and "ga." This study explores the relationship between the grammatical and pragmatic competence of Japanese L2 learners by examining their use of such…

In the teaching and learning of foreign languages, the native speaker has traditionally been the model to aspire to. However, more recent approaches to the discipline have been moving away from this notion. Foreign language education finds itself at present at a crossroads with multiple models of language and culture competence. So far no…