This paper focuses on the study of markedness theory in Universal Grammar (UG) and its implications in Second Language Acquisition (SLA), showing that the language learners should consciously compare and contrast the similarities and differences between his native language and target language, which will facilitate their learning. (Contains 2…

Rita is a Pacific island grade 2 teacher in a local village school. She has established a 90-minute daily literacy block in which she focuses on literacy-related activities. As she sits with her students during the literacy block, she realizes some of them are having difficulty comprehending text, and many are unable to retell the stories…

This curriculum guide, almost entirely in Spanish, outlines adult basic education course content to be taught in a Spanish-language high school equivalency program. The course is designed to help students prepare for the General Educational Development (G.E.D.) exam in written expression. The guide begins with a Spanish skills placement test.…

A study of verb agreement and clause structure in Karaja, a Brazilian indigenous language of Macro-Je stock, discusses the subject and object agreement systems with relation to the Feature Specification Constraint. Implementation of the SOV order in Karaja is then analyzed and evidence is presented for the existence of a single functional phrase…

This "insider's guide" to American and Japanese communication and misunderstanding is based on the premise that Americans and Japanese have different goals in communication; the American goal is to make messages negotiated between individuals explicit, while the Japanese goal is to keep messages implicit and assumed within the group. In…

Papers in this volume include the following: "Evidence for Foot Structure in Hausa" (Ousseina Alidou); "Korean 'Tense' Consonants as Geminates" (Dong-Ik Choi); "Gemination Processes: Motivation, Form, and Constraints" (Mamadou Niang); "Syllable 'Sonority' Hierarchy and Pulaar Stress: A Metrical Approach"…

This book presents 15 essays that consider writing development from many different angles, creating a collage that focuses on how to help students develop into competent writers. The first section of the book consists of four chapters on how to support young writers. In the second section, the essays explore how a variety of issues influence…

The emergence of uniform standards for foreign language learning at the elementary and secondary level will soon substantially affect the teaching and learning of foreign languages at the post-secondary level. This groundswell for some sort of standard pre-dates the establishment of the standards themselves. It has become common for students who…

The articles in this volume are based on a survey of language learners carried out at five Swiss universities. The surveys (done through interviews and questionnaires) concern the ways that students encounter their second language (French) outside the classroom, and which of those practices are the most effective in improving their French. The…

This article draws a distinction between teaching English as a Second and Foreign Language (ESL v. EFL), demonstrating that in the latter case, teaching should be moderated towards greater emphasis on formal grammar instruction and on developing learners' interlingual and intercultural awareness. Advantages of EFL teachers who are nonnative…

This report describes a program implemented to improve reading comprehension in the content areas. The targeted population will consist of students in grades two, three, four, and five, in five midwestern schools, four public and one private. The problem of poor comprehension will be documented through test scores, parent and student surveys, and…

This study evaluated one professor's teaching of English as a Second Language courses at three Japanese universities. Instruction was modified to make the courses similar communicatively to one another. The professor administered a test, found in a journal, at the three universities, comparing results to evaluate the appropriateness of his own…

This study investigated the presence or absence of two new functional features at a later stage of second language (L2) acquisition by Korean learners of English. It tested the predictions of the Failed Functional Features Hypothesis, which says that new features of functional categories in a second language are not acquirable beyond the critical…

This article discusses ways that the instruction of literature might be altered in undergraduate language and literature courses alike. It considers a broad spectrum of possibilities that may inspire different attitudes about the use of literature in foreign language classes at all levels, discussing how students can learn to analyze the ways that…

With this issue, the scope of this series is enlarged to include cultural as well as linguistic studies. Articles published in the series are based primarily on field work in Philippine cultural communities but occasionally studies are included on one of the major languages or languages spoken outside the Philippines. The present volume comprises…