This study demonstrates how native and learner corpora can enhance modal verb treatment in English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) textbooks used in mainland China. Data analysis compares modal verbs in the textbook and native corpus by referring to distributional features, semantic functions and co-occurring constructions; and the analysis of the…

This manuscript reports on a corpus-based comparison of native and nonnative graduate students' language production in an asynchronous learning environment. Using 486 discussion board postings from a five-year period (2009-2013), we analyzed the extent to which native and nonnative university students' writing differed in 10 measures of syntactic…

The structural linguistic approach for teaching language awareness to student teachers is compared to the semiotic approach, which explores signs and symbols rather than morphemes and phonemes. Advantages of the semiotic approach include its simple introduction and use and its exclusive focus on communication rather than disembodied linguistic…

Self-study is playing an increasingly important role in the learning and instruction of many subjects, including second and foreign languages. With the rapid development of the internet, language websites for self-study are flourishing. While the language of print-based teaching materials has received some attention, the linguistic and…

Discusses the continuing controversy over how to teach grammar. Finds that the traditional, structural, and transformational approaches each have their strengths and weaknesses, with none clearly better than the others. Suggests that the teaching of grammar, while not the key to improvement in written English, will always have a place in the…

A description of a study which tried to establish the sequence of language development in a language other than English (Farsi) and to measure the syntactic complexity of the first language against that of the second. Results indicate a direction toward the construction of better course materials and tests. (AMH)

A research project concerned with the development of English as a school subject in the Norwegian elementary and junior high school identifies and describes British and American influences on the theoretical climate of foreign language teaching in Western Europe from the 1950's to the 1970's. A distinct British influence, the so-called Palmer,…

The relation of the linguistic sciences to language teaching and language learning is explored. Part 1 discusses linguistics, phonetics, and their place in the description of language. Relations between language and the people who use it are examined, as well as the place of comparison and translation in the acquisition of a second language. Part…

A symposium of language learning specialists reviewing C.C. Fries' Oral Approach to English language instruction developed and used at the English Language Institute of the University of Michigan is summarized. The thesis of the symposium was that the basic Oral Approach concepts had and continue to have a profound and far-reaching, though largely…

This book discusses the relevance of applied linguistics to foreign language teaching and supports the point of view that linguistics is relevant as the source of assumptions rather than as the source of conclusions. In foreign language teaching, the assumptions based on linguistics must ultimately be evaluated on their ability to explain the…

Employed extensively in some Soviet bloc countries to teach a variety of subjects, the Suggestive-Accelerative Learning and Teaching (SALT) method uses a combination of physical and mental relaxation exercises, music, and suggestive principles to increase learning. However, in spite of research showing its effectiveness in teaching reading skills…