Describes a project designed to investigate the use of computer-aided instruction in the teaching of French syntax. (CLK)

Dramatic advances in personal computer technology have given language teachers access to vast quantities of machine-readable text, which can be analyzed with a view toward improving the basis of language instruction. Corpus linguistics provides analytic techniques and practical tools for studying language in use. This volume includes both an…

Summarizes the most basic rules for indirect speech in English but claims that they are useless if taught strictly as rules; also insists on the necessity for contextualization in drills on indirect speech. (FB)

Most composition texts categorize cohesive devices according to function, ignoring their semantic and syntactic restrictions, and giving the idea they can be used interchangeably. More effective strategies are suggested for presenting these links, including methods of teaching both intrasentence connections and the linking of larger units of…

Discusses the difficulties English speakers experience in using correctly the various tenses of the past in French, focusing particularly on the imperfect tense. Proposes a series of exercises based on contrastive analysis that gradually lead the learner to restructure his intuitive grammar. (MES)

Illustrates a classroom "Ninepins" game designed for review of German prepositions and the cases associated with them. Claims that, judging from tests, the game has proved to be an effective mnemonic device. Suggests repeated utilization of it, with variations, as an entertaining alternative to repetition of alphabetical lists. (MES)

Describes the functions, specific uses, syntactic structure, and typographical characteristics of titles, discussing examples from newspapers, books, films, and scientific journals. Analysis of the semantic relationship between title and text is followed by the description of various instructional techniques for the production of titles and the…

Describes a module used to teach ESL students to distinguish phrases from clauses and sentences from nonsentences or fragments, thus enabling them to edit the errors of punctuation out of their writing. A chart of four grammatical units in a hierarchy (single words, groups of words, clauses, and sentences) is included. (Author/PJM)

Describes difficulties with nominalization and with the rhetoric of scientific papers experienced by English of Science and Technology (EST) students, relating nominalization occurrence to scientific rhetorical divisions. Finding significant differences in that-nominal construction frequency between rhetorical sections, suggests coordinating…

Suggests that for improving syntactic fluency and the overall quality of compositions, exercises should be based on generative rhetoric. These exercises in which students supply the content of the sentence from a list of suggested structures are superior to sentence-combining exercises that provide the student with all the information. (PMJ)

Adult migrant learners of English were studied to investigate the effect of instruction on interlanguage development. Examination of the acquisition of a syntactic structure, "do-fronted questions," supported claims for the productiveness of form-focused instruction and suggested that the success of instruction depended on whether specific…

Four individuals with agrammatic aphasia were trained to comprehend and produce filler-gap sentences with wh-movement. Two participants received treatment first on the least complex structure (who-questions), and 2 received treatment on the most complex form (object-relative constructions). Object-relative training resulted in robust…

Discusses various utterance types calling for "nicht" in German, and suitable exercises for teaching them. It is felt that one should use particularly the receptive-reproductive/receptive-productive sequence. The negation of a sentence in the perfect tense is used for illustration. (Text is in German.) (IFS/WGA)

A method of training pupils to read for total comprehension by an analytical approach is proposed. Specific techniques are suggested. (RM)

A re-analysis of data from a previous study was undertaken to determine if student essays catagorized as dealing with group-phenomenon events differed in quality and syntactic complexity from essays categorized as dealing with individually experienced events. The essays of 44 college freshmen in basic writing classes were catagorized as dealing…