The contrast between written language and oral language did not really begin to attract attention until second language teaching defined as its goal the acquisition of a communicative tool rather than a literary tool. This focus on communication made necessary the distinction between language used for oral communication and language used for…

This Lunyoro/Rutoro textbook is designed for Peace Corps volunteers, and contains 32 lessons. Lessons consist of sample phrases that the students are intended to master and dialogues and conversations built around the sample phrases and key vocabulary. Topics covered include learning names, meals and the ordering and buying of food, the weather,…

This Madi textbook is designed for Peace Corps volunteers, and contains 32 lessons. Lessons consist of sample phrases that the students are intended to master and dialogues and conversations built around the sample phrases and key vocabulary. Topics covered include learning names, meals and the ordering and buying of food, the weather, health,…

This profile in outline form of the English language teaching situation in Uruguay discusses the role of English within Uruguayan society and within the educational system. Though English is quite widely used for reading scientific, technical and medical publications, and while it is considered important culturally in higher professions, it is not…

This is a study of linguistic variability among social levels in West Germany and of the problems associated with doing such an analysis. The data, ordered according to sex and social levels, were collected from young children retelling narratives heard on tapes. The report represents a comprehensive study of the children's syntactic performance…

This pamphlet is a report of a study of motivation among adults learning Welsh in Wales. It is claimed that the situations in which a language is likely to be used and the linguistic aim of the learners should be taken into consideration when the nature of the vocabulary to be included in a second language course is determined. Recent research…

The purpose of this paper is to present a general overview of the linguistic setting of Arabic. Three main areas are covered. The first of these, diglossia, is defined in general terms and then examined more closely in relation to its historical development in Arabic-speaking countries (i.e., as resulting from geographic, socioeconomic, and…

This newsletter reports on phenomena at the intersection of linguistics and psychoanalysis and psychiatry. This issue consists of the following articles: (1) an editorial entitled "The Many (Inter)Faces of Language," by Robert Di Pietro--observations on various approaches to the study of language, particularly psycholinguistics; (2) a…

A three-year study of the linguistic and metalinguistic performance of forty Mexican-American children ranging in age from three to eleven years shows that it is useful to characterize the competence of the bilingual in terms of a unified system of rules, at least at one level of analysis. This paper explores some aspects of the grammatical…

Classic studies in second language (L2) learning offer little evidence for the validity of the notion of universals in L2 learning. The present study investigates this notion in data collected from 15 observational studies of 40 L2 learners who acquired the L2 naturally, that is, they were not taught the language in any formal ways. Interpretation…

This paper compares the tone systems of Vietnamese and English, with emphasis on the teaching of English as a second language. Rising, level, high, low, and falling tones are identified for English. Vietnamese has all of these except the last. While in Vietnamese, tones are predictable in the sense that tones and words go together, English tones…

This paper presents a review of the current English language teaching situation in Egypt. The role of English in schools, in universities, as a medium of communication among the general public, and as a language of international communication is reviewed. English within the educational system is specifically considered, in terms of when it is…

This paper argues for a reorganization of the educational procedures in the ESL classroom, in the interest of developing communicative competence. Special emphasis is placed on the use in the classroom of only structural and phonological patterns which are easily transferrable to real-life situations. In the interest of abolishing mechanical…

This paper examines the factors which govern the use of infinitives and gerunds after verbs and uses American literature and periodicals since 1945 for examples of this usage. The analysis was undertaken in order to clarify this usage for those teaching or learning English as a second language. Studies yielded three general rules for the use of…

Harold Allen states that language study will become an integral component of the college English curriculum when English departments recognize that a professional knowledge of the nature and function of language, of current theoretical studies in it, and of the geographical, historical, and social variations in language is vital to understanding…