Examined the strategies used by native-English-speaking foreign language (FL) learners to read Spanish and English texts in order to investigate differences in FL reading strategies between males and females. Results indicate that students processed the Spanish and English passages using local and global strategies, respectively, and that males…

Illustrates the problems inherent in an extreme focus on form and accuracy or meaning and fluency in English-as-a-Second-Language classes. Notes that current language teaching theory views a dual, simultaneous focus as desirable and proceeds to analyze the features of an authentic example of dual focus. (20 references) (Author/CK)

Discusses the use of HyperCard to create programs for teaching English language and literacy. Describes the use of computer-assisted language learning (CALL) with hospital cleaners and catering staff. Explains CALL's role in facilitating cultural change and peer tutoring. (SK)

Describes "Reading Clubs," a program designed and carried out by two first-grade teachers in which small groups of students (primarily second-language learners) thought to be at risk for failure were coached daily. Notes that 19 of the targeted 23 students were successful enough to move with their peers to second grade. (SR)

Investigates the effects of Spanish-English bilinguals' first-language syntactic knowledge on the guesses they make about the meanings of new words encountered in English contexts. Examines a particular type of transfer to understand the process of vocabulary acquisition in second-language readers. (48 references) (Author/CK)

Examines the contributions made by stakeholders such has learners, teachers, and parents to the language assessment process. Examines the relationship between experts and government in the United Kingdom. It is argued that participation by stakeholders is not limited to providing a forum but includes equipping teachers, parents, and others with…

Attitudes toward and achievement in a foreign language were studied with 349 high school seniors. Controlling for native language achievement, difficulty in learning the language was an important achievement factor, and gender and years of study contributed to achievement. Implications for instruction are discussed. (SLD)

Discusses critical issues facing the languages across the curriculum (LAC) movement. These include benefits to students derived from LAC offerings, effective curriculum design and teaching methods, benefits of LAC to teachers in other fields, and justification of the costs of long-term institutional support. (40 references) (CK)

Describes weaknesses in the sociolinguistic competence of second-language (L2) learners as documented by research in immersion contexts. The article discusses findings with reference to adolescent native speakers' use of question forms, conditionals, and second-person pronouns across two levels of formality in written and oral productions. (48…

The features and advantages of self-directed, multimedia language instruction are discussed, and the role of the language teacher in this context is examined. It is argued that the teacher can continue to play a significant, if new, role in managing the learning process. (MSE)

Reviews data on the acquisition of German without formal instruction by native speakers of Korean, Turkish, Italian, and German, on the acquisition of French by English speakers, and of the acquisition of English by speakers of various first languages (L1). Evidence indicates that the sole projections that the learner transfers from the L1 are…

Reviews current and developing technology uses that are relevant to language assessment and discusses examples of recent linguistic applications from the laboratory at the Educational Testing Service. The processes of language test development are described and the functions they serve from the perspective of a large testing organization are…

Demonstrates how the teacher can use texts to confront learners with cultural representations. Four texts are used to represent a literary extract, a student essay, an advertising document, and a newspaper article. The article illustrates approaches that borrow from stylistics, linguistics, and discourse analysis. (21 references) (Author/CK)

Investigates how many words of the Dutch language, and which words, an adult nonnative speaker must know receptively in order to understand first-year university reading materials. Assessment of the representativeness of a list of 23,550 words and administration of a 140-item multiple-choice vocabulary test indicated that a minimum of 10,000 base…

Analyzes the narrative, descriptive, and evaluative structures of one person's two stories, drawn from oral proficiency interviews, about the same event told at the intermediate high and advanced levels on the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) scale. The discourse analysis revealed that the second story builds upon the…