The ultimate goal of reading is to construct text meaning based on visually encoded information. Essentially, it entails converting print into language and then to the message intended by the author. It is hardly accidental, therefore, that, in all languages, reading builds on oral language competence and that learning to read uniformly requires…

In examining reading comprehension in a second language (L2), I have demonstrated that the prevailing metaphor of transfer of skills is misleading, and that what happens is access to an already existing general cognitive skill. There is evidence in first language (L1) and in L2 that accessing this skill when reading in an alphabetic language…

Edited by three authorities in the field, this "Handbook" presents contributions from experts across the world who report the cutting-edge of international research. It is ground-breaking in its holistic, evidence-informed account that aims to synthesize key messages for policy and practice in English, language and literacy teaching. A…

The 7-lesson curriculum was originally developed in 1980 and revised in 1988. This second revision includes the creation of a new lesson, lesson four, that deals with creating Chinese characters and stresses that the phonetic element so important in Chinese can also be found in other languages; thus illustrating that Chinese is really not that…

This report describes one segment of the Federal Language Testing Board's Unified Language Testing Plan (ULTP), the validation of speaking proficiency tests in Spanish and English. The ULTP is a project to increase standardization of foreign language proficiency measurement and promote sharing of resources among testing programs in the federal…

This story, intended for classroom presentation, comes with suggested activities (with illustrations) for students to undertake. The story is designed to be initially presented by one storyteller/teacher (with different voices) or by 5-8 students in group tandem style. The story and the activities allow students to develop various oral language…

This handbook serves as a guide to "Talk Time," a technique for volunteer facilitators to use to help newcomers to the United States practice English in a comfortable, non-threatening setting. Talk Time provides language practice activity often not found in traditional English-as-a-Second-Language classroom settings. In Talk Time, no one…

Attitudes toward usage, accent, and dialect in spoken English are examined, drawing on literature in the field and data from a British study of year 9 students' (pupils aged 13-14) language awareness. The dilemma inherent in teaching standard spoken usage while encouraging maintenance of ethnic and regional identity is examined, with attention…

Social meaning includes evaluation of languages themselves. Linguists often say all languages are equal. This is true in regard to potential, not true of actual state. All varieties of language share with pidgins and creoles the condition of being the result of a particular history of use, specialization, elaboration, and loss. A conversational…

The relationship between oral language and academic success as a rationale for the study of narrative structures is discussed in order to determine Northern Ute children's acquisition of "school language" structures. In addition, this paper compares hypotheses concerning the expected linguistic behavior of Northern Ute children in…

Because interest in oral proficiency on the part of foreign language educators has persisted on several fronts, the common problems that teachers face in implementing oral testing are discussed, and possible solutions are offered. The problems discussed include the following: (1) how to find the time; (2) how to develop tests; and (3) how to…

Some of the major reading and writing practices currently in use in adult English-as-a-Second-Language programs are described in this digest. Reading activities for such learners are similar to those used in adult basic education classes. At the beginning level, students dictate stories to the teacher or give an oral account of an experience.…

This conversation manual and tapescript are part of a set of materials that have been developed to teach oral and written Afghan Pashto to English speakers. In addition to the conversation manual and tapescript, the set consists of a beginning textbook, an intermediate textbook, a reader, and a set of taped lessons that correlate with the…

Research on adult second-language (L2) learner's self-repair is reported. Repairs are defined as "structure shifts," which are types of correction or improvement where the speaker leaves a structure uncompleted, abandoning it or shifting to another structure. Two principal types of repairs are distinguished: code- and discourse-related…

This paper reports on a small-scale pilot study further investigating the perceptual development in the acquisition of durational contrasts by different levels of adult English-speakers of Japanese. Four kinds of naturally spoken word-tokens were edited by a synthesizer to generate word-stimuli varying the duration of a certain consonant/vowel…