English-as-second-language instructors should take into account the importance of context for the meaning of language and address the varieties of English that learners will encounter in their daily lives. The principal elements of language variation and their implications for learners are described for the benefit of second language teachers.…

Describes an experimental intersession program in which American undergraduates were taught Quebec French in Quebec. (AM)

Problems encountered in the teaching of Spanish to bilingual Spanish-speaking students are discussed. The implications of teaching the standard dialect of Spanish are considered, and a normative approach to language instruction is compared to a comprehensive language development program. (CLK)

This article discusses comprehension problems encountered by students of French as a second language as a result of the mismatch between the standard language they learn in classrooms and the language used by native speakers. (CLK)

This paper focuses on a language variation model that incorporates a number of concepts from linguistic and rhetorical studies. The model views language variation as a product of two correlating causes: one, the user and his or her personal, regional, and social dialect; and the other, the user's use of the language in terms of such discourse…

This discussion begins with a brief description of three approaches to teaching standard Spanish as a second dialect (S.S.S.D.), called the "eradication" approach, the "second dialect" approach, and the "both dialects" approach, which is favored here. Because the teacher of standard Spanish as a second dialect is…

This study is a description of the linguistic differences between three Persian dialects. The underlying aim of the study is to provide the linguistic facts necessary to evaluate the implications of divergence between the dialects for students of Persian. It would appear that if students experience difficulty in adjusting from one dialect to…

The linguistic theory of contrastive analysis, which provides pragmatic insights into the teaching of foreign languages, can be equally successful when applied to the teaching of one dialect of a language to speakers of its other dialects. This paper briefly illustrates how a theoretically constructed hierarchy of difficulty, originally designed…

Foreign language teaching methodology is confronted with the problem of teaching Spanish to English-dominant native Spanish speakers. Linguistic documentation is lacking to accurately evaluate the linguistic competence of the bilingual student, documentation also useful in the preparation of adequate instructional materials. This paper describes…

Papers from the 1998 Hispanic Linguistics Symposium include: "Patterns of Gender Agreement in the Speech of Second Language Learners"; "'Nomas' in Mexican American Dialect"; "Parsing Spanish 'solo'"; "On Levels of Processing and Levels of Comprehension"; "The Role of Attention in Second/Foreign Language Classroom Research: Methodological Issues";…

The question of teaching a standard dialect to Chicano students who are studying abroad has implications for teaching any standard versus nonstandard dialect. The University of Colorado has a program at the Universidad Veracruzana in Jalapa, Mexico, in which the policy is to teach standard Mexican Spanish (the cultivated norm of Mexico City) as an…

Essays on Spanish linguistics and related topics are dedicated to linguist Tracy D. Terrell. An introductory section gives a brief biography and a list of his publications. Essays include: "The Natural Approach to Language Teaching: An Update" (Tracy D. Terrell); "Two Mad, Mad, Mad Worlds: Notes on Natural Approach and the Writing…