Papers from a workshop on folklore in second language teaching include: "Folklore in the Classroom: Lifting the Lid on the Magic Coffer" (Genelle Morain); "An American Folklore Quiz" (Genelle Morain); "Who's Afraid of Dr. Faust?" (Gerhard H. Weiss); "German Folklore Bibliography for Teachers" (Gerhard H.…

A study investigated whether instruction in how to use a dictionary led to improved second language performance and greater dictionary use among English majors (N=54) in a reading and writing course at a Thai university. One of three participating classes was instructed in the use of a monolingual learner's dictionary. A passage correction test…

A study investigated patterns in the apparent syntactic errors of native English-speaking, upper-level learners of Arabic as a foreign language. One hundred writing samples, including summaries, criticisms, and free composition, were gathered from a number of university courses. Error types analyzed included articles, subordinate clauses, two-word…

This study documented English acquisition by a group of Hmong adult immigrants over a period of one year, and explored the factors that appeared to be affecting their progress. Based on three measures (a test of listening comprehension, communication, fluency, reading, and writing; a pictured English vocabulary recognition test; and a written…

National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data included in America's Challenge: Accelerating Academic Achievement, indicate the scope of the task of reaching the National Goal for Education on Student Achievement and Citizenship. This discussion guide focuses on the five corollary objectives of the National Goal, which are to: (1)…

Interest in elementary school foreign language programs has resurfaced in recent years, and the number of programs is increasing. Many states are requiring foreign language study at the elementary level. For a local school or community seeking to implement elementary school language programs, it is important that a rationale be developed to meet…

This paper is based on research that aims to provide evidence of which approach, contrastive analysis (CA) or error analysis (EA), is more adequate in dealing with errors in tense formation and usage made by Greek learners of English. A contrastive analysis of the English and Greek tense systems, providing points of correspondence and divergence…

A summary is presented of research on learning and teaching styles in English as a Second Language, and of results of learning and teaching style preference surveys conducted at a Mexican university in 1989. The students surveyed demonstrated much more cognitive flexibility or willingness to learn through different cognitive modes than was…

Foreign students make up an important, and growing, segment of higher education in the United States. Reasons why foreign students come to the United States to study include the following: (1) the United States offers a serious approach to higher education in which students receive appropriate training and generally are able to complete the…

Second-language and native-language methodologies are equally inappropriate as a foundation for the language training of cultural minorities. Second-language methodologies are based on the assumption that the language is to be acquired in school, as either a subject or a school activity. The relationship between teaching and learning is taken for…

Advanced learners of second languages and natural language processing systems both demand much more detailed lexical information than conventional dictionaries provide. Text composition, whether by humans or machines, requires a thorough understanding of relationships between words, such as selectional restrictions, case patterns, factives, and…

Six papers presented at a conference on early childhood first and second language acquisition sponsored by the California state legislature's Child Development Programs Advisory Committee include: "Bilingual Development and the Education of Bilingual Children During Early Childhood" (Eugene E. Garcia); "An English-Only Preschool Program" (William…

The English spoken in India is too close to standard English to be characterized as a separate variety. Although phonological variations give English in India some regional flavors, they do not have any structural or semantic base and do not constitute a new language. Cultural differences have not caused English-language literature written in…

A brief history of television use in foreign language instruction is presented, and the ways in which videotape technology has increased television's potential are discussed. Various uses for the medium, including films designed for language teaching, non-specialized material taped off the air, videotaping of student productions, and…

The need for an analytical approach to the study of phatic, metalingual, and metacommunicative functions in asymmetrical communicative situations (between native speakers and language learners) is discussed. The study presents theoretical frameworks for gambits and repairs, the linguistic phenomena that primarily serve those functions, and…