Students at the U.S. Air Force Academy participated in a study of Chinese language skill acquisition. Findings included more rapid and accurate character recognition was associated with higher proficiency; printed frequency had the greatest effect upon accuracy of naming; character density correlated with recognition accuracy; and denser…

Offers six teaching activities suggested by teachers: addressing vocabulary development; punctuation awareness; building background knowledge for English literature; a system for notetaking; a month-long unit on African folktales; and an Alzheimer patient's response to children's literature. (SR)

Four ideas for French language instruction are presented, including an exploration of cultural and linguistic meaning in advertising; use of the Minitel database and computer capabilities; interpersonal communication games; and a vocabulary development and comprehension activity using text from a French weekly publication. (MSE)

Fifty-two severely handicapped children (ages 3-12) were trained on communication skills using microprocessor technology. Positive effects were found for the additional computer language training, especially on the specific vocabulary taught, a cluster of general language measures, and teacher and parent measures of social interaction skills. (DB)

Summaries of seven language-related research projects are presented from Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Topics include a lexicon of Kelabit, cognitive theory for second-language acquisition, academic writing in Filipino, cultural politics of English instruction, use of conjunctions, and communicative grammar. (LB)

A description of an English proficiency test illustrates the communicative approach to language testing. The test measures students' ability to identify specific notions, give appropriate responses, use correct grammatical structures and vocabulary, engage in grammatical/spelling/capitalization problem solving, and use task-based material in…

Presents a problem-solving activity in which students determine the effects on the water level in a pool when rocks are removed from a boat floating in the pool and placed into the water. Students discuss the problem, design an experiment to test solutions, conduct the experiment, and draw conclusions. (MDH)

Comparison of three training conditions for Spanish-vocabulary development with 30 deaf undergraduates found no significant differences for short-term memory. However, long-term-memory scores under the repeated writing condition were significantly higher than scores under the fingerspelling or silent-reading conditions. (Author/DB)

Discusses emergent literacy development, which includes meaningful literacy-related activities involving oral language, reading, and writing. Offers suggestions for fostering children's development in each area, such as the use of picture books and puppets for vocabulary development; reading aloud and discussing children's literature; and…

Describes a summer reading program designed to improve low-achieving students' reading skills and to assist them in becoming focused and motivated readers. Finds that the summer reading program provided the necessary stimuli for the participants to develop an appreciation for reading, improve their vocabulary, and develop critical thinking skills.…

Evaluates strategies undertaken to improve students' foreign language reading competence. The article focuses on the ability of pupils to cope with reading texts containing unknown vocabulary, students' motivation to overcome difficulties in comprehension, the best methods to attain a permanent vocabulary gain from reading, and the transfer of…

Presents descriptions and examples of processes used by French-as-a-Second-Language instructors to teach vocabulary, reporting qualitative analyses of classroom transcripts and pedagogical materials used to teach. Teachers emphasized semantic aspects of lexis; lexical instruction in analytic and experiential classes was characterized by similar…

Investigates children's early lexical development in English and Korean and compares caregivers' linguistic input in the two languages. Results indicate that young Korean children use verbs productively with appropriate inflections and that, unlike in English, both verbs and nouns in Korean are dominant categories from the single-word stage. (39…

Sixty third-grade English learners received one of three treatments: listening to a story in English with no intervention or explanation, listening to the story with concurrent Spanish translation, or listening to the story with preview of background and review of important points in Spanish. Vocabulary development scores were highest among the…

The efficacy of screening two-year-old children for language delay using a parent report questionnaire was investigated in three related studies. Parents' reports of children's expressive vocabulary size was highly correlated with clinical language measures at age two, but somewhat less accurate at predicting developmental status a year later. (DB)