Languages differ in the way that speech and meaning are represented in written form: in English, the correspondences are variable. Thus, in learning to read in English there is need for an approach that combines alphabetic decoding and a mastery of sight vocabulary. Teaching children to read should develop from an analysis of the skills and…

Chinese characters are used in both Chinese and Japanese writing systems. When literate speakers of either language experience problems in finding or understanding words, they often resort to using Chinese characters or "kanji" (i.e., Chinese characters used in Japanese writing) in their talk, a practice known as "brush talk" ("bitan" in Chinese,…

Proposals currently being debated for a reform of the examination system at 18+ in England and Wales, and comments on the proposals, are presented to aid in future planning of language courses in Northern Ireland. The context in which the new proposals arose is briefly examined. The following three standard course proposals are diagrammed for…