A study investigated the effectiveness of a text revision strategy in improving the writing skills of college students (St. Lawrence Campus of Champlain College in Quebec) of French as a second language. Subjects were two groups of students in one course. One group (n=24) was taught a revision technique using self-questioning to detect and correct…

This study surveyed 29 high schools concerning Japanese language instruction (JLI). A questionnaire focused on five aspects of JLI, including type of textbooks and supplementary teaching materials used; teaching approaches and goals and student achievement; class formation; and ideas for future JLI. Data from 17 high school Japanese language…

This document consists of all six issues of the bilingual (English and French) periodical "Monday Morning" published from its inception in 1985 through 1992. This publication was developed by the Canada/China Language Training Centre (C/CLTC), a language teaching enterprise that provides French or English language training to Chinese…

This digest identifies some of the cultural factors that can influence learner and teacher behavior during classroom English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) instruction. Four topic areas are discussed: roles of learners and teachers, gender-related issues; appropriate topics for instruction, and behavior at the site of instruction. Given the diversity…

A study in an early French partial immersion program in a Melbourne (Australia) elementary school investigated participating children's performance in mathematics in English (their first language) and French. Mathematics testing in both languages has been undertaken regularly as part of a long-term evaluation of the program. In the first year of…

A study investigated beliefs about language learning held by American adult students of Arabic studying in two programs, one in Morocco and one in Yemen, and compared them with beliefs held by the teachers. Subjects were 44 students and 10 teachers from the Morocco program and 27 students and 7 teachers from the Yemen program. Subjects were…

This book discusses how second language acquisition (SLA) research can illuminate language pedagogy, and suggests four main roles for the SLA researcher: developing relevant theories; conducting classroom research; making research accessible to teachers; and facilitating action research. The first chapter outlines a number of different…

A study examined the development of pragmatic competence in second language learners, focusing on the requests produced by adult non-native speakers (NNSs) of English across three settings (a university public administrative office, the private office of a university program officer, and an English as a Second Language classroom) and nine levels…

A study at Queens College (City University of New York, New York) investigated the literacy backgrounds of nine non-native-English-speaking students of varied ages and language groups who failed the freshman composition test. Data were gathered in focused interviews (questions appended), which asked for the student's recollections of the…

A study of German-speaking learners of English as a Second Language observed students telling a story, in English, based on an eight-frame cartoon provided to them. The cartoon had a surprising conclusion whose understanding required careful observation early on, creating a cognitive stress affecting language processing. It was found that in…

A British longitudinal study of language acquisition was followed up for further information on the relationship between language acquisition, language aptitude, and second language learning. One of the original cohorts (n=23), now in secondary school, was originally studied for native language learning achievement and was now being studied for…

Little data are available concerning the native languages of Scandinavian residents, other than the official languages, despite the linguistic diversity of the region. Foreign language teaching starts early in schooling, but there has been little study of actual language needs. Three basic program designs are available for teaching foreign…

This paper discusses non-native speakers' use of interactional strategies to elicit responses from or negotiate meaning with their interlocutors in an attempt to solve their problems in conversational listening. It is concerned with the question of whether these interactional listening strategies can be taught as a means to improve learners'…

A review of literature addresses two main issues: (1) how the acquisition of English by deaf signing children has been understood as an instance of second language learning; and (2) how deaf children learn to read English, given this understanding. The first chapter chronicles the history of language use in deaf education and reviews research on…

This paper examines the integration of Business Russian into the Russian curriculum at Michigan State University (MSU) and the creation of a capstone sequence of Business Russian courses at the advanced level. The establishment of the basic goals of the school's business language instruction and the needs of the students are discussed. The paper…