As part of the development of the phonics-based reading component of the SWRL Model 2 Communication Skills Program for kindergarten through third grade, this set of 166 spelling-to-sound correspondence rules for one- and two-syllable words was created. Designed to accompany a lexicon for beginning reading instruction, this booklet includes an…

Tests for four letter-sound generalizations--"c" pronounced as [k] or [s] and "a" pronounced as [ae] or [e]--were given to 73 first, second, and third grade children at six-week intervals during a single school year. Each test included five synthetic words (e.g., cipe, acim, bice, cib, ocet) for each generalization. Children responded individually…

The establishment and development of the English language in Australia is investigated. Present Australian pronunciation is compared to popular London pronunciation of the late 18th century, and today's general Received English is compared to both. (RM)

Discusses a study conducted to determine the approaches and techniques pupils used to pronounce actual unknown words. (JM)

Despite a survey carried out on the teaching of Spanish language in British and Irish universities that showed one-third of the respondents considered the teaching of Spanish intonation unimportant, examples are presented to show that it is necessary in Spanish language instruction. (HP)

Diglossia is characterized here as a pattern in which a culture recognizes different language varieties. This paper deals with implications of Arabic diglossia for the teaching of English to Arab students. (CHK)

Assesses the progress being made in German schools toward the current goals of communicative competence in: pronunciation (beginners), vocabulary (Secondary 1) and work on texts (Secondary 2). Measuring achievement is especially important. Greater cooperation is needed between curriculum developers, administrators, teachers and students. (Text is…

Provides a set of priorities and learning activities for a short-term English as a second language pronunciation course. These include: stress/unstress, major sentence stress, intonation, and linking and pausing. (CB)

Examination of the speech of 33 monolingual Spanish-speaking children found that syllable type affected the correct pronunciation of novel words. The different syllable types comprising the novel words could be hierarchized. Performance on syllable type appeared to be an interaction between the structure of the syllable and phonological processes…

While there are many problems to be resolved concerning the substance of instruction within a communicative approach the manner of teaching must also be considered, including methodology, the linguistic aspect (vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation), norms, and the use of computers. (MSE)

A descriptive model elaborated to account for the rhythmic organization of French and English is applied to the speech of French learners of English to identify the particular type of cross-linguistic influence operating therein. Evidence is presented for the existence of transitional rhythmic groups, perceived in the interlanguage vowel reduction…

Reports on the results of two surveys of college-level instruction in Russian, conducted in 1980 and 1983, designed to measure to what degree phonetics is included as an integral part of the program. The majority of the schools in both surveys indicated a casual attitude towards teaching pronunciation and an overall downward trend in the role of…

The need for testing oral proficiency in the foreign language is discussed and several kinds of testing procedures described. A specific oral language production test is suggested. (RM)

A questionnaire given to students and teachers of English in grades 9, 10, 12 and first-semester university students revealed that 70 percent rated most difficult the difference between English /s/ and /z/, and in fact all voiced-unvoiced consonant contrasts. Twenty-two percent mentioned intonation. Swabian dialect interference was considered.…

Twenty texts in the Chinese dialect of Shanghai city are presented as a tool for those familiar with some dialect of Chinese who are learning this variety. The texts, recorded as spontaneous speech, were originally collected for grammatical analysis and have been revised somewhat for print form. They are arranged in approximate order of…