The Literature Learning Project at the English Studies Department, Institute of Education in Singapore is described. It focuses on determining how well lower-level students cope with their literature texts and also tests the hierarchical properties of Hillocks' taxonomy of skills in reading and interpreting fiction. (18 references) (LB)

Examined the ability of bilingual college students from Catalonia, Spain to learn a new vowel contrast as indicated by classifying the vowel, discriminating two vowels, and judging its "category-goodness." Found a lack of behavioral plasticity and that early, extensive exposure to a second language was sufficient to attain the…

Discusses language instruction in international schools, with particular focus on understanding the international school context, a typology of early language learners, and a typology of early-language-learning programs. (Author/VWL)

This article takes a microanalytic perspective on the speech and gestures used by one teacher of English as a second language in her intensive English program classroom. Videotaped excerpts from her intermediate-level grammar course were transcribed to represent the speech, gesture, and other nonverbal behavior that accompanied unplanned…

This study presents a taxonomy of the recasts that arose in communicative ESL and EFL classrooms. The taxonomy is used to examine the relationship between different characteristics of recasts and learner uptake/repair. Characteristics that were significantly related to uptake were the length of recasts (short vs. long), the linguistic focus…

Although the primary use of the speaking section of the Test of English as a Foreign Language™ Internet-based test (TOEFL® iBT Speaking test) is to inform admissions decisions at English medium universities, it may also be useful as an initial screening measure for international teaching assistants (ITAs). This study provides criterion-related…

In second language instruction, it is important to examine the learner's effort in carrying out classroom activities in order to relate teaching activities to learning theories. Any impact of a teaching activity on the learner's language development must result from what the learner does, not what the teacher does or intends for learner to do. The…

Several articles dealing with bilingual education and language acquisition among American Indians illustrate problems representative of this ethnic minority. The major article by W. Miller considers the Shoshoni language as an "obsolescing" language, and a bibliography of the Numic languages is included. The information exchange section reports…

Reports a study of native Spanish speakers' acquisition of the ability to discriminate lexically in English between similar items with different characteristics. The study also examined the role of first-language interference in the process. (MSE)

An important problem for a language learner is identifying how properties of argument structure are realized morphosyntactically in the particular language they are learning. Speakers of some L1s overgeneralize the morphosyntactic reflexes of the movement of Theme objects in English to unaccusative intransitive verbs, using passive morphology in…

Identification of a language minority learner for placement in a program for English Language Learners (ELLs), and the length of the support program, may have a significant effect on the student's academic achievement. Widespread anecdotal evidence suggests that criteria used to make placement decisions vary widely across the U.S. This study…

A discussion of second language learning strategies (LLS) first reviews research on defining, classifying, and listing LLS, then looks at studies on factors affecting learners' LLS choices, and finally examines their application in second language teaching. A definition of LLS as "specific action taken by the learner to make learning easier,…

Formal, contextual, and technical aspects of language teaching methodology design are discussed in this article. The author develops a basis for tentative classification of language drills and exercises in terms of linguistic behavior in the light of these aspects. Basic language skills are classified according to three types of stimulus-response…

This paper describes the methodology of a study seeking to determine whether there is evidence that French immersion children with specific reading disability in one language also have the disability in the other language, and learning-disabled readers belong to the same subtype in both languages. (Author/JDD)

Cognitive development research can be applied to the learning of a second language, resulting in a view of language learning as the acquisition and development of expertise. From this framework, two processes are viewed from within this framework for learners of English: learning vocabulary and learning discourse and story. (Contains 10…