Examined the speech of Sudanese non-native speakers of English while they lectured to non-native English speaking students from in content-subject classes. The study was carried out to see whether lecturers simplified their language syntactically by proficiency level. Findings reveal that the lecturers used five different syntactic variables…

Investigated linguistic and affective outcomes of summer study abroad participation by 25 college French students. Sought to determine if significant changes occurred in two linguistic factors--oral and listening French skills--and two affective factors--integrative motivation and language anxiety after study abroad. (Author/VWL)

Examines synchronous computer-mediated communication used in a university environment. Compared the level of participation among students and contrasted their written German chatroom discourse with their oral discourse produced in small face-to-face discussion groups. (Author/VWL)

Focuses on the roles of text-structuring metadiscourse and intonation in signalling in larger-scale organization of academic talks. Compares the occurrence of metadiscoursal and intonational signals of organization in authentic undergraduate lectures and in talks in English for academic purposes listening materials. (Author/VWL)

Discusses language and interpersonal communication skills in light of the pervasiveness of electronic devices, that do not require speaking. Correlates the lack of communication skills to the rise in violence in America. Concludes that we cannot allow the proliferation of information technology to vitiate the strength of our personal communication…

Cloze tests were administered to native- and second-language speakers in Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom to analyze problems that demonstratives pose for second- language students of Japanese and English and to suggest future improvements for existing explanations and grammatical accounts for each language. (25 references)…

Presents a case for teaching the pragmatic (discourse-based) features of English intonation to foreign students of English as a Second Language. Advocates a systematic approach to teaching these functions of English intonation through a consciousness-raising methodology that uses authentic academic oral texts. (25 references) (Author/CK)

In this article, two teachers of students with hearing impairments present their understanding of semantics and how they use this understanding to informally assess students' signed, oral, and written-language samples. Describes different classroom strategies for encouraging students with hearing impairments to use rich language. (Author/CR)

Investigated the relationship between writing performance and speaking performance in German as a foreign language learners through quantitative analysis of the variance and correlation among oral, written, and explicit rule abilities as evidenced in present-tense verbal morphology and syntax. Subjects performed an explicit rule grammar test and a…

Examines status in institutional discourse and identifies congruence as a factor in the success of native and nonnative speakers. Nonnative speakers suffered from a lack of context-specific pragmatic competence involving the use of status preserving strategies and appropriate content for noncongruent speech acts. (21 references) (JL)

A case study of a native-English-speaking child's acquisition of Hebrew through immersion in daycare found that a period of silence was followed by a rapid onset of second-language production. Eight types of language awareness were identified, with conclusions drawn about their role as prerequisites for starting second-language production. (58…

A comparison of the oral and written performance of college students of French as a second language taught by traditional methods and by use of tape recordings found that the written task was performed equally well by both groups but that the oral tasks were performed better by students taught with tapes. (Author/MSE)

An extracurricular program in an Australian university French language program that brings together adults of varying ages and nationalities for oral language development activities is described. The program uses improvisation, psychodrama and role playing, and suggestopedia all together to develop a theme or in alternation, for creativity and…

Reports results of the administration of a battery of tests of oral language skills to blind braille readers (N=15). Three skills were tested: phoneme deletion, sentence completion, and morphological analysis. Participants were congenitally blind high school students. Subjects differed from sighted readers only in the ability to perform…

An annotated bibliography cites 11 publications on a variety of topics in linguistic research produced since 1986. Topics include child language, oral language, a speech synthesizer, French speech, the free expression approach to language learning, French language teaching methods, and French for special purposes. (MSE)