Reports on an ESRC-funded study of the levels of knowledge about language of first-year undergraduate student learners of French and the relationship between this metalinguistic knowledge and language proficiency and aptitude. (Author/VWL)

Discusses one form of repetition found in ordinary conversation, a form where a speaker produces a first saying, and subsequent to that, a second saying within the same turn. Proposes that this particular form of repetition is used by speakers as a storytelling technique in the accomplishment of the action of resumption. (Author/VWL)

As we move from the Industrial Age to the Information Age, foreign language programs are hampered by inadequate curricular emphasis and negligible funding for materials or teachers. Five goals for foreign language learning include communicative competence, cultural awareness, interdisciplinary connections, cross-cultural comparisons, and…

Evaluated the effect on French language proficiency of an integrated formal, analytic and functional, communicative approach to second language teaching in the immersion classroom. Impetus for the study arises from previous research indicating that immersion children show persistent weaknesses in their grammatical skills despite the fluent,…

Examines the need to keep constant the optic, the framework within which AEI definitions are written. Both the Interagency Language Roundtable Language Skill Level Descriptions and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages guidelines are revised and more fully specified. (Author/JL)

Examines conversational interactions between children aged 8-13 years. Participants were paired to form 96 age-and gender-matched dyads of native speakers and nonnative speakers. Results suggest that in child-child interactions the nativeness and proficiency of pairings influence the amount of negotiation for meaning that occurs. (Author/VWL)

Suggests current scholarship has paid little attention to issues of linguistic differences and cultural translatability and points out the need for language departments offering courses in cultural, ethnic, and Diaspora studies to require proficiency in another language and to cultivate responsiveness to language politics at both the local and…

Investigates how different types of focus-on-form instruction affect second language learning of English grammatical structure, particularly present perfect. Results showed that subjects with both rule instruction and visual enhancement of input showed higher proficiency than other groups in the short term. (Author/VWL)

Discusses the choice of an English placement test. Suggests that English language screening decisions need to be examined from within the context of a particular institution's situation. Provides questions to be addressed before choosing an appropriate screening device. (Author/VWL)

Functional neuroimaging of bilinguals and monolinguals used in conjunction with experimental cognitive tasks has been successful in establishing functional specialization as a principle of brain organization in humans. Consistent results show that attained proficiency and possibly language exposure are more important than age of acquisition as a…

Addresses the question of whether there are different characteristics and language performance conditions (involving assumed different levels of cognitive demand) associated with different levels of fluency, complexity, or accuracy in test candidate responses. Participants were pre-university students taking English courses. (Author/VWL)

Explores the role of a course on Spanish cinema in an undergraduate, university-level curriculum in terms of its potential to acquaint students with significant cultural issues and to develop language skills. (Author/VWL)

The present study investigates the developmental aspect of the revised hierarchical model (Kroll & Stewart, 1994) concerning the access to the conceptual store from the second language (L2). We manipulated the level of proficiency and age of L2 acquisition. We tested Spanish-Catalan bilinguals (49 early proficient bilinguals, 28 late proficient…

The authors report 4 experiments exploring the language-switching performance of highly proficient bilinguals in a picture-naming task. In Experiment 1, they tested the impact of language similarity and age of 2nd language acquisition on the language-switching performance of highly proficient bilinguals. Experiments 2, 3, and 4 assessed the…

This article reports a case study designed to explore the effectiveness of full-scale, authentic-text theater production for second language learning. Based on the results of preproduction and postproduction tests completed by cast and crew members, as well as the observations of all involved, the authors maintain that the diverse communication…