The paper describes methods of natural language enhancement which both teachers and parents can use with young children who have language delays. The importance of connecting language to meaningful, functional communication is stressed. The reinforcement for the child becomes the adult's natural and spontaneous response. Adults, then, must prove…

Literary artists manipulate language. If educators could develop in their students the same sense that language is manipulable, they could help them to better appreciate literature. Emily Dickinson's poem "I Like to See It Lap the Miles" could be approached by changing it on several levels--graphics, phonics, syntax, and semantics--and…

A system for teaching advanced English as second language students how to use "a,""an," and "the" in writing is described. In deciding whether to use a definite or indefinite article, the student is taught to ask three questions about the context and nature of the noun: (1) has it been mentioned before in the composition, (2) is there anything…

This article looks at question forms in everyday language usage from a functional point of view. Question forms are used more often in classrooms than in other situations. The advantages and disadvantages of exploiting question forms in the language classroom are examined. (CLK)

Describes techniques for measuring and developing the syntactic fluency of students learning French. (P M P)

If college freshmen know something about syntax, have practiced combining and breaking down sentences, and have learned to think in terms of deep structures and surface structures, they may be better able to understand and relieve the discomfort caused by a garbled key sentence structure. Grammar instruction in freshman composition provides a…

Teachers are often baffled by the inability of a number of basic writing students to use the proper connective to show relationship between sentences or phrases for coherence. Most frustrating is the teacher's inadequacy in giving definitions or explanations beyond the student's textbook descriptions of the connectives. However, a cursory…

Language training for the non-verbal or language delayed child should utilize feedback to reinforce correct responses and should closely follow the syntactical development of normal children. The two basic areas of language training are receptive and expressive. Receptive language training includes attending and responding, following single phase…

GENERATIVE THEORY NOW DOMINATES MACHINE TRANSLATION AND HAS BEGUN TO TAKE OVER THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR IN THE SCHOOLS, AS ONE PUBLISHER AFTER ANOTHER COMES OUT WITH A TRANSFORMATIONALLY-ORIENTED SERIES OF TEXTBOOK FOR HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH. THE AUTHOR FEELS, HOWEVER, THAT THE EFFECTS OF THIS THEORY ON LANGUAGE TEACHING HAVE BEEN NEGLIGIBLE…

THE AUTHORS HAVE DESIGNED THIS GUIDE FOR NON-LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED ENGLISH AND LANGUAGE ARTS TEACHERS WHO ARE FACED WITH THE PROBLEM OF TEACHING "THE NEW GRAMMAR." THE INTRODUCTION PRESENTS A RATIONALE FOR THE TEACHING OF LINGUISTICS IN THE CLASSROOM--"THE NEW GRAMMARS, INTELLIGENTLY APPLIED, MAY HELP CHILDREN NOT ONLY UNDERSTAND THE SYNTAX OF…

Two crucial factors in teaching spelling are the teacher's understanding of the material to be learned and the teacher's understanding of the nature of the learner. Psycholinguistics is relevant to both the material and the learner. In teaching spelling, it is possible to draw insights from behavioral and cognitive psychology as well as from Noam…

The purpose of this study was to help second grade children expand and elaborate their sentences by using sentence expansion techniques which would provide exposure to word form classes and increase awareness and understanding of syntactic units. Nineteen children in a second grade class for the gifted were asked to write a one-page composition at…

Three examples are given of cases where differences between Spanish and English syntax and intonation patterns are taught best through direct translation. Grammatical difficulties caused by "gustar" are overcome through the use of translation using "appeal" rather than "please". Similarly, problems for native speakers of English arising with…

If in reading a sentence a reader finds something unfamiliar in lexical meaning or grammatical structures, the meaning of the written material may be ambiguous to him. Sometimes the context will help to clarify the meaning of an unfamiliar element, but often it won't. Understanding what is read involves not only the process of reasoning, but also…

In deciding what grammar should be taught, teachers of English as a second language can notice and record common errors (goofs) made by their students. It is possible to expose all types of goofs, state the rules to correct them, acquaint the teacher with the types of goofs made by persons from all over the world, and give them the grammar…