The need for an index of development by which second language proficiency could be expediently and reliably guaged has been acknowledged by both second language (L2) teachers and researchers. In two previous L2 studies, the search for an index of development centered on an examination of learner written performance. In an attempt to construct an…

A study of the interlanguage of bilinguals and multilinguals compared the oral French proficiency of 20 native Swedish-speaking and 20 Finnish-speaking university students as evidenced in error patterns in oral tests. With the exception of phonological and phonetic errors in pronunciation, errors were classified by word class (article, noun,…

The emphasis of the Schools Council Research and Development Project at the University of Wales on teaching English to Welsh pupils aged 8-13 was on curriculum development. This paper covers the problem of acquiring the necessary basic knowledge about the needs of Welsh first language pupils in the learning of English when long-term, rigorous…

Examples of the spontaneous speech in French of native English speakers, average age 7.6 years, were collected at the end of their second year in a French immersion program. Results show that the native language strongly influences second language speech production. While vocabulary and pronunciation are of course predominantly French, the…

An examination was conducted of the planned and unplanned speech of 24 native speakers of Mandarin and Korean who were serving as teaching assistants at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Each was videotaped on two occasions two weeks apart in a preparation course for international teaching assistants (ITAs), in which instruction in the use of…

Discourse analysis has provided a methodology for the study of conversational interactions between language learner and native speaker. This study examines the verbal and nonverbal strategies that native speakers use when communicating with second language learners in natural, non-academic, "survival type" settings. The areas discussed include:…